


i'm no sweet dream but i'm a hell of a night

by mogirl97



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Female Friendship, Gen, Killing Eve AU, Red Kryptonite Kara Danvers, Slow Burn, chaotic lesbianism, y'all have seen killing eve right?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-05-28 11:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19393036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogirl97/pseuds/mogirl97
Summary: Lena Luthor’s plan to make a name for herself outside of her family with a career at the FBI gets a little derailed when the FBI busts her brother for selling weapons to enemies of the state just as she’s graduating from Quantico. With her brother’s reputation proceeding her, she has a hard time getting her supervisors to trust her enough to give her a chance to track down a new assassin on the scene. An assassin she’s sure is a woman.When she finally gets the opportunity to work for a shadow organization and find her mystery woman, things get a lot more complicated than she ever could’ve bargained for.~A Supercorp Killing Eve AU~





	1. Do you even speak Kaznian?

**Author's Note:**

> hi friends! i'm excited to finally start to share the new au i've been working on!! it's inspired by killing eve, although it's not going to exactly follow the plot of the show because i've incorporated some elements of the red kryptonite and red daughter storylines to come up with a plot for this fic that should hopefully still be a little bit unpredictable for you even if you've seen killing eve. i hope you enjoy! :D

Sleeting rain pounded against the windows as the black town car slunk through the streets of National City, giving the night an ominous feel and doing nothing to ease Maxwell Lord’s nerves about the impending rendezvous. The dashboard clock read 1:53am when his driver pulled up to the address he had been given for a nondescript building in a part of town he made a point not to ever pass through. 

The cold metal case had warmed where his hands clutched it tightly. He was ready for this to be over, to wipe his hands of the matter and make attempts at absolving the guilt staining his conscience. 

Instructing his driver to wait close by, he slipped out of the backseat and headed towards the door. He was early. He knocked once. Twice. 

A narrow bit of roof was keeping some of the icy rain off of him, but his back was being soaked and if he had to stand out there for much longer, a chill was definitely doing to seep through his coat and into his bones. He should've brought an umbrella.

There was a crash a few yards away and his head whipped around for the source of the noise as his heart rate spiked. A scrawny, soaking wet cat came scampering down the alley and he released an exhale at the sight of the non-threat. The past year had undoubtedly taken at least five off his lifespan with the constant anxiety flooding his blood with unquantifiably high levels of cortisol. 

The door swung open and a woman’s face, framed by a mess of dark curls with one thick white streak, was illuminated by the dim street lights.

“You’re early,” she remarked coolly. 

“Would you have preferred I be late?” 

Instead of answering, she beckoned him inside. The building appeared empty save for a single table under a light fixture that consisted of a light bulb hanging from exposed wires. With every passing moment he felt more and more certain that this whole ordeal was going to end with him being murdered. At least then the journalist would no longer pose a problem for him.

The woman tapped the table and he took that as his cue to set the case down. He kept a hand on it though, unwilling to concede it to her. Not yet. 

Her eyebrow raised, her mouth drawing into a thin line, and he swallowed. 

“You assured me this—” Whatever  _ this  _ was. He hadn’t asked questions, hadn’t wanted to know anything that wasn’t relevant to the task he had been given. “—wouldn’t blow back on me.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, staring him down. “Your involvement is over as soon as you hand me that case. Unless you’ve failed to provide me with what you promised, you’re free to go back to whatever trivial pursuits you were engaged with before that were sinking your company into bankruptcy.” 

He bristled. It was true that Lord Technologies had been clinging perilously to the edge of financial stability before he had been approached a year ago by the stranger who had promised to pump his company full of funding in exchange for developing the serum contained in the case. He had been flattered by the stranger’s admiration of his prior successes with bio-engineering... and desperate to revive his company. What they had been working on had not been trivial, but had yet to render itself profitable, and Lex Luthor was proving himself to be a formidable business opponent. He needed time, he needed money to put himself back on top. When he was changing the world, this slight breach of ethics would be inconsequential. 

As long as he didn’t end up in prison for it. 

“A journalist—one of Cat Grant’s minions—came by yesterday to ask some questions. Someone must have blown the whistle on our black budget.”

“It’s not my fault you can’t keep your house clean.” 

The woman reached for the case and he tensed, pulling it back across the table closer to him. He was being an idiot. She could easily have a gun on her and he didn’t get the impression that she would hesitate for even a second to pull the trigger on him. Except that she didn’t have proof yet that the serum was viable. In every simulation he had run, it had been a success, but it was still untested on a living, breathing human being. And humans could be unpredictable. She still needed him in case something went awry and the formulation needed modifying, and he thought that put him in a position to make one small demand. 

“If this... project becomes a cover story in CatCo—if I’m arrested, someone will eventually follow the trail back to you.” 

She scoffed, “I don’t exist.” He maintained his hold on the case, meeting her gaze with what he hoped was matched intimidation, even though he was definitely sweating through his expensive suit, and she relented with a roll of her eyes, “Since you haven’t caused me any problems yet, I will take care of your problem. What is this journalist’s name?” 

“Danvers. Kara Danvers.” 

For barely a second the hard facade of her face cracked open to reveal something that resembled human emotion, before it was back to stone cold. She slid the case towards herself and opened it up to reveal three syringes filled with the thick scarlet red serum he had spent the last twelve months quietly concocting in his private lab.  _ Create-your-own-psychopath _ in a vial. 

She held up one of the syringes for inspection, “I think we’ve found our first test subject Mr. Lord.” 

“Me?” he blurted out. 

Her eyes narrowed, “You have multiple doctorates do you not? A few IQ points floating around up there?” She pointed the syringe at his head and he took an instinctive step back as if she was going to leap across the table and stab it into his supratrochlear artery. “Obviously I was not referring to you. We’re going to kill two birds with one stone. Create our operative,  _ and _ make sure Kara Danvers is otherwise occupied to be trifling with you.” 

“Are you sure you want her? She’s just a journalist.” 

He wasn’t sure what her plans were for whoever she chose as the unlucky person to be on the receiving end of his serum—again, he didn’t want to know anything more than he already did—but he doubted that the fidgety blonde who had showed up in his office in a polka dot cardigan was an ideal candidate for one. 

The woman placed the syringe back into its place in the case, “For now. But with this… with this she can be reborn into exactly what I need.”

**2 Years Later**

Lena blinked her eyes open and instantly slammed them shut again when she encountered the blindingly bright ray of sunshine streaming through the window. She was exhausted. Bone dead tired. Her head hurt. 

Someone jammed an elbow into her side and she tentatively opened her eyes again to see who the perpetrator was. Beside her, Ruby stretched out like a sleeping cat in between her and Sam, her birthday crown still perched haphazardly on her head. 

In college she used to be able to handle going out to parties before sitting for a Biology exam the next morning, but apparently now she could barely hang with a bunch of seven year olds hopped up on cake and ice cream without feeling like she was going to need a whole weekend to recover. By the time she and Sam had finished cleaning up the house the night before, it had been late and Ruby hadn’t needed to put in much effort to convince Aunt Lena to stay for a sleepover. 

Sam stirred and looked across her daughter over at her. 

“I think you have glitter on your face,” she mumbled sleepily. 

“Do you think I can put manicurist for fidgety seven-year-olds on my resume?” 

“Mmmm. That’s definitely the special skills they’re looking for to move you up the ranks at the Feds.” 

Lena laughed softly, and eased herself into a seated position, careful not to jostle Ruby. She had met Sam on their first day at Quantico two years ago and they had been fast friends ever since. They had gotten lucky, both having been assigned to the National City field office when other agents in their graduating class were being sent to opposite sides of the country from the person they trusted most to have their back. 

Sometimes when she drove past the LuthorCorp tower, recently relocated to National City from Metropolis, she wondered what her life would be like if she had stayed on the path her family had laid out for her. An office of her own, with windows. Twice as many digits in the number in her bank account. She didn’t have any regrets though. Her life was her own, free from Lex and Lillian pulling on her strings like they had until the day she had taken off for Quantico after her graduation from MIT. 

The last time she had heard from her mother had been a little over a year ago, after Lex was arrested for dealing weapons to foreign enemies  _ and  _ attempting to murder the Daily Planet journalist who had blown the lid on the operation. Lillian had pleaded with her to take over the company in his absence—moving the headquarters to National City had been part of her appeal—and Lena had to admit for a moment she had been tempted. Things at the FBI had gotten off to a less exciting start than she had anticipated, a lot of riding the desk and attending meetings where no one cared about her input. She had a sinking suspicion that it was her last name that was keeping her on a short leash, keeping her from being trusted with more. The unfortunate timing of Lex’s scandal had completely overshadowed how she had proven herself during training at Quantico. 

Ultimately though, being an underutilized special agent was still better than being under her mother’s thumb. With her position as the head of the board, Lena would just be acting as her puppet in the CEO chair. 

Her phone started buzzing on the nightstand simultaneously with Sam’s and they exchanged a look before taking the calls that likely meant they weren’t getting the day off as originally anticipated. 

Ruby’s usual on-call babysitter for such occasions was the high school girl who lived next door and was inconveniently away on vacation. Since Sam hadn’t been able to get someone else on such short notice, they left Ruby in their shared office with their assistant Eve, a package of strawberry Poptarts, and a movie on her Ipad to occupy her.

“I don’t think she’s allowed to be in here…” Eve’s voice trailed after them, her concern ignored as they dashed off to the conference room they had been summoned to.

“She’s barely seven. What is she going to do? Overhear state secrets and sell them to the highest bidder in retaliation for the FBI causing her to miss out on going to the aquarium?” Sam muttered, pulling her  _ still-messy-from-sleep  _ hair up into a ponytail while they hurried down the hall. 

Lena caught her reflection in a glass wall they passed and realized she should follow suit, pulling a hair elastic off her wrist. 

When they got to the meeting, every seat at the small table was already filled, so they found a spot hugging the wall.

The person next to her whispered, “You look like you need this more than me.” Lena turned to see Agent Sawyer holding out a to-go cup of coffee. “I already took a sip, but if you’re not worried about germs...”

Agent Maggie Sawyer had been part of the team that busted Lex’s operation. She had also overseen the subsequent interrogation into whether or not Lena had known anything about what her big brother had been up to. She hadn’t. (She hadn’t been all that surprised though.) The whole ordeal had made her feel like no matter what she did she would never be able to run far enough from her last name. All this to say, Lena had been a little defensive around Maggie since then, but she wasn’t going to turn down a peace offering in the form of Noonan’s signature dark roast. 

Lena accepted the warm drink gratefully, taking a swig before passing it over to Sam who grimaced at the bitter taste. Her friend was not a black coffee person, but caffeine was caffeine. 

Lena started to feel her brain turn on as their director began the meeting, explaining the situation at hand. A Kaznian diplomat—Lena felt that using the word “diplomat” was being generous seeing as the United States’ diplomatic relations with Kaznia were currently tenuous at best—had been murdered outside his hotel early the morning before. Those tenuous relations were exactly why it was very,  _ very _ bad that a high ranking Kaznian had bled out in the streets of Gateway City from a clean cut to the femoral artery. Lena listened carefully to the information that had been gathered so far in regards to the assassination. The only witness had been the diplomat’s assistant—

“And lover,” Sam leaned in to whisper when the much younger, and stunningly beautiful woman’s picture was flashed on the projection screen. Lena had to agree with Sam’s deduction. 

—who had fled the scene. Which brought them to why they were all in a conference room in National City at 7am on a Saturday morning. 

“This is Special Agent Diana Prince, from the Gateway City field office,” their director introduced the woman as she entered the room. Diana had been in her and Sam’s graduating class at Quantico and they had both been a little bit in love with her. Which didn’t make them special, everyone had been a little bit in love with Diana. The agent sitting next to the director practically jumped from his seat to offer it to her. 

“Good morning everyone.” Diana sat down in the chair and folded her elegant hands in front of her on the table. There was a huge diamond on her left ring finger so apparently someone was  _ a lot _ in love with her. “I apologize for having you brought in so early on a Saturday, but unfortunately assassins don’t accommodate for our weekend plans. Following the incident yesterday morning we have since tracked Ms. Petrov here to National City. She’s understandably still very shaken up from the ordeal and in no state to be questioned yet. Therefore she requires protection until we can proceed with the investigation.” 

“We’ll be dividing you up into two units to take shifts for guarding the safehouse where’s she being held for the next 48 hours,” their director added. 

_ Glorified babysitting. The fun just never ends around here. _

Sam ended up being assigned with Maggie to the unit on first shift so she turned to Lena to ask, “Can you take Ruby home? I’ll call one of my other babysitters to come over before you have to head for the safehouse.” 

“Of course. Don’t have too much fun without me.” 

“We’ll try, but I’m bringing UNO, so...” Maggie remarked with a little shrug of her shoulders before slipping out of the room. 

“Can we like her now?” Sam asked when she was out of earshot. “Because I have to admit, I like her.” 

“We never didn’t like her.” 

“You didn’t like her when she wanted to have you arrested just for being related to Metropolis’ Most Wanted. And as your best friend I’m obligated to dislike the same people as you.” 

Lena ran her finger around the rim of the coffee cup, collecting condensation, “She was just doing her job. I can’t be mad at her for that.”

Out in the hallway, they were approached by Diana. “Samantha, Lena. It’s good to see you both.” 

“It’s good to see you too,” they replied, talking over each other.

Diana closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Although I wish it were under different circumstances. I didn’t get a minute of sleep last night trying to track down this poor girl.”

It was entirely unfair that she looked that good on zero sleep. Lena recalled a few all nighters she had pulled in college that left her looking like a character from the Zombie show that her roommate had watched. 

“I think the killer is a woman,” Lena divulged the theory that had been turning in her brain during the briefing. “A powerful man like that wouldn’t see a woman as a threat, making it easy for her to get close enough to slash his artery like she did. I’ve actually been looking into possible connections—” 

Sam gave her a look that could be roughly translated as,  _ “Now is not the time to go murder board crazy on the woman who clearly just needs a nap.”  _

“—anyway, just a theory,” she concluded. 

Diana raised an eyebrow, “But one I think probably has some merit. I’ll get someone to look into the whereabouts of the active female assassins in the database. Thank you Lena.” 

“You’re welcome. And umm, congratulations.” 

“Hmm?” 

Lena’s eyes flitted to her left hand, “Your ring… I assumed...” 

“Oh, yes.” Diana lifted her hand, inspecting the diamond with a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “My desk is currently covered in pictures of dead bodies and wedding dresses.” Her eyes crinkled in amusement, “Who says women can’t have it all?” 

Her phone started to ring and she dismissed herself to take the call, leaving them with the sentiment that they should catch up sometime when they weren’t trying to track down an assassin. Lena went back to her office where Ruby was sitting on Sam’s desk braiding Eve’s hair and promising to invite her to her next birthday party. 

“Where’s my mom?” Ruby asked when she looked up to see that Lena had walked in alone. 

“She still has some more work to do, so you’re going to hang out with me for a while.” 

“At the aquarium?” 

Lena hesitated for a second before caving, “Sure. We can go to the aquarium.” 

“Can Eve come too?” 

“Oh no, that’s okay. I have a lot of work to do,” Eve said, rising up from her chair and helping Ruby down from her perch on the desk. “But thanks for my hairdo.” 

“It’s a good look on you,” Lena remarked of the three lopsided messy braids projecting from her head, biting back a laugh. She picked up Ruby’s coat to help her into it, mouthing over her head at Eve, “Thank you.” 

Eve mouthed back, “You owe me.” 

At the aquarium, while Ruby pressed her face against the glass, captivated by the sea turtles, Lena found her mind wandering to the assassination of the Kaznian diplomat. To it’s possible place in the web she had been weaving to connect a string of murders that had taken place over the past year. She didn’t think Diana was going to have any luck with the database, because there was someone new in the game, someone unknown. She was sure of it. The few times she had tried to talk to her director about it though, she had been shut down with the same token phrases. Other people were handling those investigations… or the trails had gone cold enough that they weren’t being further pursued. She should focus on her own responsibilities instead of trying to turn a bunch of isolated instances into an elaborate television plot. 

This witness was the closest she had been able to get to her assassin since she first started tracking her kills. She couldn’t let the opportunity just slip through her fingers. 

* * *

_ “Don’t want to be a fool for you, just another player in your game for two. You may hate me but it ain’t no lie—“  _

“Hey!” Kara called in protest when Astra stopped the music that was filling her loft. 

Walking in to the living room, she found her niece polishing off a cinnamon roll. A crumpled Noonan’s bag, a coffee cup with the name  _ Linda _ scrawled across it, and a discarded dark brunette wig that went along with that particular alias were laid out on the table in front of her. The expression on her face was a mixture of a pout and a glare. 

Maxwell Lord’s Red Kryptonite serum— _ create-your-own-psychopath _ in a vial he had dubbed it, might have stripped away her morality, empathy, and conscience, but in a lot of ways she was still the same person. Just a more narcissistic, manipulative, reckless, and deadly version of Kara. 

Although the deadly part was more thanks to her. 

She should’ve been there to get custody of her niece when Alura died. She  _ would’ve _ been there if her sister hadn’t turned her into the Feds. They had disagreed about the way the world should be, about what was necessary to bring that world about. She still never expected it would be her own twin who would betray her, leave her to rot in a Supermax. She would have died in prison, like everyone thought she had, if she hadn’t already proved her value to the organization, proved herself valuable enough to go through the trouble of breaking her out and erasing her from existence. 

And then the fates had aligned to reunite her with her beloved niece.

They had made up for years of lost time while Astra forged Kara into a weapon, taught her how to harness the violent streak running through her veins thanks to the serum and use it to do the organization’s dirty work. With knives, guns, poisons—whatever Kara was in the mood for. They left the specifics of how to carry out eliminating the target to her, and she had developed a little bit of a flair for the dramatic. 

Logically, Astra knew her niece wasn’t capable of caring about her anymore—she was hardly capable of feeling anything at all. She would turn a gun on her and leave her blood splattered on the wall behind her without a second thought. But she couldn’t help but still care about her, even though she had a propensity for being an annoying brat—an unfortunate side effect of the serum. 

“Do you have a new target for me?” Kara asked, licking frosting off her fingers. 

“No.” She sat down on the couch across from her and crossed one leg over the other, picking a piece of golden cat hair off her dark jeans. The demon hadn’t acknowledged her arrival, but it was undoubtedly lurking around somewhere. When Kara had first insisted upon bringing home the stray cat that had lived in the alley behind the old warehouse where they had brought her for her injections, Astra thought it meant the serum’s formulation was flawed if she still wanted to care for an animal. But no, the cat was just as much of a psychopath as Kara and their relationship was built on mutual antagonism. Mean and scrawny, although slightly less scrawny now, that cat was the bane of Astra’s existence. She didn’t dare go to Kara’s place without long sleeves and long pants on unless she wanted to risk leaving with her skin covered in scratches. “You made a mess, you need to clean it up.”

Kara arched an eyebrow, “Hmm?” 

“Nadiya Petrov. You let her get away.” 

Her niece waved a hand dismissively, “She didn’t see me.” 

“She might have. The FBI must think she did, because they have her under 24 hour protection at a safehouse outside of the city.” Astra pulled a card with an address out of her jacket pocket and slid it across the table to Kara. “Make it look like a suicide.” 

* * *

When Lena arrived at the safehouse the next morning with the rest of the agents who would be relieving the first shift, Maggie and Sam were nursing mugs of coffee, dark circles under their eyes. 

“Well—” Maggie stood up and rolled her head from side to side, stretching out her neck. “It’s been real Arias. I’m going to go home and try to see my wife for five minutes before she leaves for her shift at the hospital.”

They both bid her goodbye and then Lena asked Sam if Nadiya had said anything to them during their shift. 

“No, she’s been completely silent—I think she’s still in shock. And even if she had been feeling chatty, I doubt it would’ve been in English.” 

Lena pressed her lips together thoughtfully, “I’m going to try to talk to her. She’s the best lead I’ve had on finding the woman behind these murders. Maybe with a witness testimonial that corroborates my theory, they’ll finally let me pursue this.” 

“She’s going to be questioned. They’re bringing in a translator tomorrow evening.” 

Based on prior experiences, her expectations on the likelihood that she would be involved in the questioning, or clued in to what came from it, were low. 

Lena blew out a frustrated exhale. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing.” 

“Do you even speak Kaznian?” 

“I speak Russian… that’s close enough to be conversationally effective, right?” 

Sam frowned, realizing she wasn’t going to be discouraged. “Just be sensitive, okay? Her boyfriend, boss, whatever, was stabbed in front of her less than 48 hours ago and now she’s in FBI custody in a strange city.” 

When Sam left, Lena knocked softly on the bedroom door where Nadiya Petrov had holed herself up, “Nadiya?” 

She heard shuffling noises from inside, and then the door was cracked open to reveal a glimpse of the woman’s face. It was a sharp contrast to the photograph they had been shown in their briefing. She looked even younger, her hair hanging limp and greasy around her face, residue of make-up streaking her face and smudging up her eyes. 

“May I come in?” Lena asked in Russian, hoping she would understand. 

Nadiya blinked at her, her expression vacant, before opening the door further for her to step inside the room. She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and Lena could see that her nails had been bitten to the quick with just a few patches of red polish remaining. 

Lena almost reflexively asked, “Are you okay?” before biting her tongue, because clearly she was not. 

“I was wondering if you were ready to talk about what happened…” 

Nadiya said nothing, her gaze remaining fixed on the dingy carpet. 

_ Be sensitive Lena.  _

She tried again, formulating the sentence in Russian in her brain first. It had been too long since she had used the language and she was a little rusty. “Are you hungry? The food they have stocked in these places is usually shit, but I could get you something from a restaurant...” 

Leaving the safehouse she was supposed to be helping protect was not going to earn her any points with the boss, but there were five other agents on guard with her, she could slip out for food for half an hour without the world ending. 

Nadiya muttered something indiscernible. 

Lena took a small step closer to her, “Hmm?” 

She looked up and repeated herself, a little louder, “Something American. I wanted a burger, but Andrei said no. Said I would get fat.” 

Lena reigned in an eye roll. Not to disrespect the dead, but Andrei sounded like he was a dick. 

She gave Nadiya a friendly smile, “I’ll get you a good American burger, and then we’ll talk?” 

Nadiya nodded affirmatively and went back to inspecting her ruined nail beds. 

On her way out the door, Lena glanced back over her shoulder, unable to hold back any longer the question that had been burning inside of her since the briefing, “It was a woman, wasn’t it?” 

“Da. Sumasshedshaya devushka.” 

_ Crazy girl. _

Lena turned away as a satisfied smile spread across her face. She could get more details after returning with the promised meal. 

In the Big Belly Burger drive through line, wrapped around the building with people seeking hangover cures for their Saturday night out from the one spot in the city that served reliably greasy burgers and fries at all hours of the day, she tapped out on her steering wheel the rhythm of the NSYNC song playing from her shuffled music library.

“It ain't no lie. Baby bye bye bye…” she muttered softly before finally making it to the ordering window. 

“Welcome to Big Belly Burger, what can I get you?” the guy’s voice was completely monotone, giving the exact amount of effort that minimum wage warranted. 

“Hi uhhh…” She hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning in her eagerness to get to the safehouse and her stomach was currently reminding her of that fact. A burger and fries was not her first choice for a morning meal, but it would have to do. “Can I have two Classic burgers with fries and chocolate shakes please—actually, make one of those shakes vanilla.” 

Best to have options in case Nadiya wasn’t a chocolate person. 

“That’ll be $15.74,” he reported and Lena wondered if she could get reimbursed if she saved the receipt before remembering that technically she wasn’t supposed to have left the house.  _ Had being cut off from her trust fund turn her into a cheapskate? _ It wasn’t like she made pennies with the FBI, but it might as well be spare change compared to what her net worth would’ve been had she maintained her family ties. 

While she waited for the line to move forward so she could pull up to the next window her phone buzzed with a text. 

**UNKNOWN: Hi Lena. No luck with the database. All female assassins in the system are either dead, incarcerated, or under surveillance on other continents. Just wanted to keep you in the loop! It was lovely seeing you, hopefully we can get together sometime soon on better terms. -DP**

_ Just wanted to keep you in the loop! _

That was a first. Even if Diana hadn’t told her anything she hadn’t already expected to hear. 

Lena added Diana to her contacts before dropping her phone into her lap and pulling forward to hand over a $20 bill in exchange for her meals. With Nadiya’s eyewitness account, this mysterious woman, who up until this point Lena had only known by her victims, could finally start taking shape in her mind.

When she got back to the safehouse, she was filled with a sense that something was not right. A creeping sense of intuitive dread clawing up her throat. She swallowed. She was just being paranoid. There were no signs that the house had been disturbed.

Balancing the bag of burgers and fries, the tray of milkshakes, and her phone, she walked toward the house and jabbed the doorbell with her elbow. 

“Mark?” She called for the agent who had been in the front sitting room when she left earlier. “It’s me, Lena. I’m back.” 

No response. Juggling the items in her arms, she managed to get a grip on the doorknob. Still locked. 

She reminded herself to breathe. Deep, steady inhales and exhales like the yoga teacher had instructed when she went to a class the other week after her doctor had told her she needed to find a way to relax that didn’t involve alcohol. 

Setting the food down on the porch, she unlocked her phone and dialed the number of the safehouse. It rang and rang and rang, unanswered. 

She hadn’t had to kick down a door since she learned how to do it at Quantico and she sincerely hoped that her muscle memory would serve her well. 

First try, no dice. 

Giving it another go, with a bit more force, the lock gave way and the door flung ajar. 

At that point, burgers for breakfast were low on her list of priorities and she left the food on the porch as she slipped her gun from where it was concealed under her jacket. She took a few tentative steps into the house and her stomach lurched in revulsion at what she encountered. All the lights were out, but there was enough sunlight streaming in through the gaps between the window blinds for her to see. 

Blood. Blood everywhere. 

Mark was crumpled on the floor and she dropped to a crouch to check for a pulse before noticing the deep gash in his throat that was draining him dry. It was too late for him. 

Standing up, she ran for the bedroom, nearly tripping over the other agents that had been left littering the hallway. Deep breaths were long abandoned, she was on the verge of hyperventilating as she burst through the open doorway and found Nadiya lying on the bed. 

_ “Nadiya?!”  _

She rushed to her side, tears pricking her eyes at the sight of the girl’s blank, lifeless stare. This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be dead. Her training kicking in, she pressed her hands to Nadiya’s chest to start doing CPR compressions and blood gurgled out of the gash in her throat. 

Lena was suddenly grateful for the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything that morning as her stomach turned and she dry heaved. 

Resignation settled in and she reached out to gently close Nadiya’s eyes. It did nothing to make the sight less gruesome. Her hands were covered in sticky, warm blood and she went to the bathroom to scrub them until her skin was chapped and dry from the cheap soap. 

When her director showed up twenty minutes later, she was sitting on the porch, mindlessly shoveling fries into her mouth and wondering what had happened to the milkshakes. She almost laughed at the irony as it occurred to her that a burger that had been declared one of the worst fast food options for cardiovascular health in the edition of Women’s Health she had paged through in the waiting room of her doctor’s office was the reason her heart was still beating. 

“What the hell happened here Luthor?” 

* * *

“Okay, well, all things considered, six months on desk duty is not that bad,” Sam’s voice filtered through the speaker on her phone. 

“Especially since that’s basically all I’ve been doing for my entire career thus far,” Lena grumbled, pouring herself another glass of wine. 

After spending hours back at the field office being grilled on what had happened at the safehouse—despite the fact that she knew about as little as any other still living person at the FBI did about what had transpired during the 33 minutes she had been absent from the premises thanks to the security cameras shorting out in the power surge that had darkened the house—she had been issued her disciplinary measures for unnecessarily going against protocol and sent home. She of course had a pretty good idea of  _ who  _ had happened at the safehouse. But with Nadyia dead, she was back to square one with figuring out anything about her. 

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay to be at home by yourself tonight? You know you can come over here…” 

Lena sighed, “I’m fine.” She had learned from a young age how to compartmentalize, how to pack things she didn’t want to feel into tiny boxes where they could be ignored and forgotten about. The psychologist at Quantico had told her it would serve her well in the high stress situations she would encounter in the field where she had to think rationally, without being clouded by emotion, but that it wasn’t a way to live. But it was a deeply ingrained reflex, one she hadn’t figured out how to turn off even after making friends she knew she could trust enough to confide in. “I really just need a shower and some bad reality tv before I try to go to sleep. Is the Bachelorette on tonight? What day of the week even is it?” 

She had never seen an episode of the Bachelorette before, but it seemed like it was the kind of show you watched to avoid thinking about your own life. 

“It’s Sunday, so no, no Bachelorette. Keeping Up with the Kardashians, maybe? I’m serious Lena, do you need to talk about what happened?” 

“I already did, to like eight different people.” 

“Okay but, Lena you—” Sam’s voice broke, “You could’ve died today. I know our job is dangerous, I know this is what we signed up for, but....” 

“But I didn’t die. And sure, I didn’t get as much as I was hoping to from Nadiya, but she did confirm that the killer was a woman. I was right. I just have to find some other angle to get at her from.” If she was being calloused about Nadiya’s death now it was only because the horror of seeing her lifeless body had been in the first box Lena packed away that morning. The only thing that could be done now was to move forward. “She’s so good, this assassin, but if she slipped up a little this time, there’s a chance it’ll happen again and then I can—” She pressed her fingers to her temples where a headache had settled in, “I don’t know. Then I can do... something.” 

“Okay, well I’m ordering you some food on Postmates from that Thai place you like so that you  _ eat _ something, because have you done that all day?” 

“I had some french fries like...” She glanced at her microwave clock, “Nine hours ago?” 

She heard Sam sigh in exasperation before muttering something that sounded like, “I am a mother of two.” Her voice came back more clearly, “You like their spring rolls right? And the peanut stir fry with—” 

“Sam,” Lena interrupted her. 

“Yeah?” 

“Thank you. For checking in on me.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

“And I do like the spring rolls, and the peanut stir fry, with tofu.” 

“Disgusting.” 

“It’s not! It’s like chicken, it tastes like whatever you put on it.” 

“Oh. No. That is a boldfaced lie.” 

Lena laughed, feeling some of the heaviness in her chest from the day’s events starting to lift.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just come over?” Sam asked. 

“I’m sure. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow, okay?” 

“Okay. Food should be there within the hour, go take your shower.”

“Yes  _ mom _ .” 

If only her mom cared as much about her. 

After showering, Lena retrieved her laptop and went over the files she had been assembling on the assassin. There wasn’t much. There was a reason she had eluded law enforcement for as long as she had. She was like a ghost. 

Raking her hands through her damp hair, she squeezed her eyes shut in frustration, the images on her screen lingering on the back of her eyelids. 

_ “Who are you?” _

* * *

“She’s getting out of control Astra, more unpredictably violent, attracting too much attention. It’s time we start to consider that this little experiment of yours might be nearing its expiration date.” 

Astra peeked around the doorframe at her niece, blood splattered across her face, perched on her kitchen counter kicking her feet idly while she slurped down a Big Belly Burger milkshake. Beside her, the demon cat had its head fully submerged in a second shake. 

With no precedent for what the Red Kryptonite serum did to a person, they didn’t fully know what to expect from Kara the longer she was under its influence. But Astra had observed over the past two years that her niece’s violent nature tended to get worse and worse the more she indulged it. Whenever she was given more time in between assignments, it had the effect of temporarily turning down the flame for a while. There was no reason to do something rash, she just needed a chance to cool off. 

“She just needs a break. A few days to lay low. We’ve been keeping her too busy.” 

“Hmph. Don’t let your personal attachment to the girl cloud your judgement Astra. I need to trust you’ll do what is necessary, if it comes to that. Do you understand?” 

She swallowed. “Of course. You can trust me.” 


	2. I like your jacket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your feedback on the first chapter!! I didn't get a chance to reply to everyone but it makes me so happy to read that people are excited for the premise of this AU. Enjoy chapter 2!!!

Lena tapped her foot impatiently as she waited in the long pre-work rush line at Noonan’s. She was one week into her punishment of being bound to her desk, and if she thought what she had been doing before was desk duty—she had been wrong. An extra two shots of espresso in her morning latte was necessary to get herself through the mind numbing amounts of paperwork she had been collating. Yesterday, while fighting with a jammed stapler, she had been minutes away from calling her mother and begging for a job, which was an indicator of truly deep desperation. It was killing her to overhear snippets of conversation about the investigation surrounding the events at the safehouse, and to not be included in it.

The line slowly crept forward and someone jostled into her, catching her off balance and knocking her into the patron in front of her. 

“Sorry,” she muttered, glancing around for who had bumped into her. In the crowded coffee shop, it had undoubtedly been an accident, the person already dissolved into the throng of customers. 

The woman in front of her who had been the victim of the domino effect turned around and her eyes widened slightly when they landed on Lena. She had dark wavy hair with a fringe of bangs framing watery blue eyes. Lena wondered briefly if  _ she _ should get bangs, but then Sam would really be worried about her mental state. Her makeup looked like she had slept in her eyeliner from the night before—but in an intentional way that made her look cool, not like a raccoon. A spray of freckles dotted the woman’s cheeks, a touch of innocence on an otherwise slightly dangerous looking face.

Dangerous looking in both an,  _ “I wouldn’t even have to be that drunk to be convinced to hook up with her in a sketchy bar bathroom she’s so hot,”  _ and a  _ “She seems like the kind of person who might own a motorcycle,” _ kind of way. 

“I like your jacket,” the stranger remarked of the cropped red suede jacket she had thrown on over her jeans and black t-shirt that morning. 

Sam had told her that showing up to work in pajamas during her disciplinary confinement was letting the big man win. 

_ “As if I would ever go out in public in my pajamas. Forget about the ‘big man,’ my mother’s spider sense would alert her that I had irreversibly tarnished the Luthor image and she would have one of her snipers take me out.”  _

_ “Didn’t your brother’s arrest get like… broadcasted... on national news...” _

_ “He was wearing a Tom Ford suit when it happened so I don’t see your point Sam.”  _

It took Lena’s brain a second to catch up with the compliment—it was undetermined if that was due to her not having had her coffee yet or because she was overly fixated on the mouth the words had come out of. She really needed to get out more if a simple human interaction—that just happened to be with an... incredibly attractive woman—was rendering her useless. She swallowed, her tongue unconsciously darting out to lick her lips. 

“Thanks,” she finally managed to get out, hoping her cheeks hadn’t turned red and deciding that she was going to drag Sam out that weekend so she could work on getting her game back. 

Her eyes flitted down the woman’s body to inspect an outfit which consisted of dark wash jeans; a tight fitting, long-sleeved black shirt that revealed a small stripe of sculpted stomach; and a black cape jacket over it all. 

A small smirk turned up the corner of the stranger’s mouth when Lena’s eyes made it back up to her face and she might’ve said something else if Lena’s phone hadn’t started ringing, breaking whatever spell it felt like had been cast between them. 

Fumbling for her phone in her bag, Lena tapped the screen to accept Sam’s call. 

“Hey. Yes I’m at Noonan’s… yes I can get you something…” The line moved forward and Lena half listened to Sam telling her about the passive aggressive email she had gotten that morning from the team mom about bringing snacks to Ruby’s soccer tournament that weekend— _ so no bar hopping then _ —and half kept her attention on the woman in front of her who was stepping up to place her order for a pumpkin spice latte and a cinnamon roll. 

_ Did she tell the barista her name was Laura? Lana? Leah?  _

“Not all of us have hours of free time to be making Pinterest-worthy homemade snacks, but that doesn’t make me a shitty mom. Besides, I’m perfectly capable of picking up a box of granola bars and some of those cute little oranges, which will satisfy a bunch of hungry second graders just fine.” 

“Mhmmm…” she murmured in agreement. “Hold on, it’s my turn to order.” Pressing her phone against her shoulder to muffle the speaker, she said to the barista, “Two medium coffees, one black, the other with two sugars and a cream.” 

The barista started writing on the cups, asking, “Is that all?”

“Yeah—I mean, no. A cinnamon roll. I’d like a cinnamon roll too.”   
  


Lena tapped her card to pay for the order and then lifted her phone back to her ear to tell Sam she’d see her at the office in ten with her coffee. Looking around, she tried to find the hot girl with the name that started with the letter L and spotted her when the barista called for a _ “Linda,” _ or at least that’s what it sounded like over the noisy chatter… and immediately lost sight of her again when a fresh surge of people entered the coffee shop. 

Tamping down what was really an irrational pang of disappointment, Lena retrieved her order and made her way to the FBI headquarters to begin another _ thrilling _ day pushing papers at her desk. 

* * *

“Do either of you by any chance have a tampon?” 

Lena glanced up at Eve, who was leaning against her desk. “Maybe, give me a second.” 

Reaching for her bag, she started to rifle through it before giving up on that and dumping out the contents onto her desktop. She really needed to start carrying a smaller bag that was less likely to turn into a black hole. A quick survey of the items revealed, “No tampons. Sorry.” 

“Me neither Eve,” Sam said apologetically. 

“Ugh. Okay. I’ll just get one from the machine. Thanks for checking.” 

Their assistant walked off and Lena started to put her stuff back into her bag. In doing so, she found a piece of paper that she was pretty sure hadn’t been in there prior to that morning bearing in unfamiliar handwriting an address, the day’s date, the time of 9:30pm, and:

_ Ask for the Harbinger’s favorite. _

“What’s that?” Sam asked, watching her. 

“I don’t know. I think someone slipped it into my bag while I was at Noonan’s. It was so crowded in there… I never would’ve noticed. Thankfully they were putting something in and not stealing stuff I guess.” 

A part of her briefly hoped it had been jacket girl, but it seemed like a really dramatic (and slightly ominous) way to go about asking someone out after one very limited interaction that Lena had probably read too much into. And who was  _ “the Harbinger?” _

She gave the note to Sam for her to inspect and, after skimming it, her friend looked up at her, “Are you going to go?”

Shrugging, she took the note back and started googling the address, “Why not?”

“Besides the obvious serial killer reasons?” 

“If it’s from a serial killer, that’s even more reason for me to go.” Sam gave her an incredulous look and she elaborated, “Because, then I can arrest them.” 

“Can you though? Under your current restrictions?” 

“I don’t know. To be completely honest I was not paying very close attention to anything that was being said during that disciplinary meeting considering I was processing the fact that I had just narrowly avoided getting my throat slashed.” 

For as flippant as she spoke about the morning at the safehouse—it was still haunting her at night. Another reason for the extra shots of espresso, she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep—free from nightmares that replayed everything she had witnessed, warping the images ingrained in her memory into even greater horrors—all week.

Sam closed her eyes and winced, “Don’t remind me.” 

The address from the note was for a bar in a part of town Lena had never been to, which didn’t do anything to quell her curiosity. The note hadn’t said to come alone, but she had a feeling that was implied. 

She looked up from her screen. “Okay so, other than a serial killer, do you have any other theories on what this might be about?” 

“The person who killed off all those agents and Nadiya at the safehouse wanting to finish the job?” 

Lena frowned, “Any theories that don’t end with me being murdered?” 

She googled “Harbinger” next and, other than the dictionary definition: ‘ _ a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another,’  _ the query results weren’t particularly insightful.

“Sorry.” Sam reached across their desks and covered her hand with her own. “Just be careful, okay?” 

Lena arched an eyebrow, “You’re not going to try to talk me out of going?” 

Sam patted her hand. “We both know that would be a pointless endeavour. You’ve been bored out of your mind all week, you’re in no position to be able to resist a clandestine meeting. But just know, if you get yourself murdered and I have to go to the soccer tournament all by myself this weekend, I’m going to be pissed.” 

* * *

Lena kept a vigilant watch on her surroundings as she walked down the sidewalk towards the bar she had been summoned to after finding a parking spot a few blocks down. As she had struggled to parallel park her Prius into a tiny sliver of street, she thought wistfully back to the days of having a driver to drop her off at the door to wherever she wanted to go. A bit of her old life that she definitely did miss. Along with the private chef and being able to afford clothes with more than three… two digits on the price tag. 

Noises—music, laughter, conversations—filtered out of the buildings she passed by and bled out onto the street as people passed by her. The lively atmosphere of the block, instead of the desolate creepiness she had been expecting, abated some of her fear that she was walking into a situation that was going to result in her death. A glance at her watch showed the time to be 9:27 and she quickened her pace so as not to be late. 

When she entered the locale the first thing that caught her attention was someone singing karaoke in the corner—to be specific they were singing Mamma Mia with the passion of a person who was definitely going to drunk text their ex after getting down from the stage. 

The last time she had sung karaoke had been the night of her graduation from Quantico and she only had a hazy memory of it. From what she could recall it had been a rousing performance of Total Eclipse of the Heart—a duet with Sam, horribly off-key since they were both borderline tone deaf, but since everyone at the party (including them) had been completely shit-faced they had been cheered on as if they sounded Aguilerian. If someone had gotten it on video it had mercifully never surfaced—unless someone was still holding it back in case they ever needed blackmail material. 

That had also been the night that she and Sam had kissed for the first and only time. It had been sloppy, their mouths tasting like alcohol, fingers tangling in each other’s hair. Once they had sobered up the next morning they had laughed about it, knowing it would never happen again. While she considered Sam and Ruby her family, it was because she and Sam loved each other like the sister they both had never had growing up, not because of a romantic entanglement. Although people had assumed that to be the case more than once. One time they got free wine and dessert at a restaurant by just going along with it and pretending it was their anniversary.

She had gone on a few dates, but nothing had really stuck. It was hard to date someone who didn't have the same security clearance as you. Hard to date when you spent so much time thinking about another woman. 

Also, women didn't really like it when you invited them back to your apartment and they had to see pictures of a man who had bled out from the word “liar” etched into his bare chest with something sharp, sitting out on your coffee table because you forgot to file them away before going out. It kind of killed the mood. 

Not that she knew that from firsthand experience or anything. She just assumed. 

Her thoughts drifted for a moment to the woman from Noonan’s that morning before she shook them away and, approaching the bar, she waved down the bartender on duty before sliding onto a stool. 

“What can I get you?” he called, wiping down the counter with a washrag as he made his way down it to her. 

“Umm… the Harbinger’s favorite?” 

She had meant for it to sound like a more confident request, with a period instead of a question mark, but the whole thing felt too spy movie to be real life--even for someone who had spent the last two years with the FBI. He was probably going to reply with,  _ “What the fuck is that?”  _ not,  _ “Let me just open the secret trap door behind the bar for you Ms. Luthor.”  _

He paused and looked up at her with more interest. “Follow me.” 

She did. Not through a trap door but into a back room where an unfamiliar woman was waiting at a table. A glass sat in front of her that was empty save for a few melting ice cubes. 

Upon her arrival, the woman stood up and extended a hand to her for a firm shake, “Thank you for meeting me Ms. Luthor.” 

She gestured for her to sit down and Lena did, folding her hands in her lap and eyeing the woman curiously as she took her seat across from her. The stranger was striking, with cropped dark hair and sharp blue eyes; wearing an impeccably tailored black suit. 

“I apologize for all the secrecy, but I’m sure you will understand its necessity in a moment. My name is Lyla Micheals and I’m the director of ARGUS—”

“ARGUS doesn’t actually exist,” Lena blurted out with a laugh before she had a chance to think better of it, instantly regretting her rude interruption. 

She had heard whispers of the organization before, a shadow division of the CIA that didn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else. The prevailing belief was that it was all a rumour of unknown origins.

An amused smile flickered across Lyla’s face, “We prefer that people continue to think that.”

“Oh.” 

“As I was saying, the reason I wanted to meet with you tonight is to offer you a job with my very secret, but very real, organization.” 

Lena’s mouth gaped open in surprise. “What?” 

“We keep tabs on the FBI and it has come to our attention that you, Ms. Luthor, are being tragically underutilized. And we at ARGUS believe we share a common endeavour with you.” Lyla retrieved a file folder from her bag and opened it to show her a world map that was marked with several red dots, most of them clustered within the United States. “Do these locations mean anything to you?” 

Lena squinted, scanning the paper for a few seconds before it clicked. The same exact map was hanging above her desk at home. She looked up at Lyla, “You think the same person is behind all of them too?” 

Lyla nodded, “He doesn’t have a specific calling card that we’ve been able to identify, but there’s definitely a certain… style present in all of these homicides, suggesting that one person is responsible.” 

“She,” Lena corrected her. 

“She?” 

Lena leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest, “It’s a woman. I’m sure of it.”

“Okay. Well, we want you to find her. We don’t think that she’s a lone wolf. These victims aren’t random or unassociated. There’s something bigger going on here. We get her, we get one step closer to finding out who’s calling the shots.”

Lena had waited to hear someone affirm her own theory for so long that she thought she was hallucinating. 

“You’re clearly already invested,” Lyla continued, “And it would save me from having to reassign one of my otherwise occupied operatives for what could be a very lengthy game of cat and mouse.”

_ Otherwise occupied operatives. Say that five times fast.  _

Lena dug her fingernails into her palms and told herself to focus. The very opportunity she had wanted for months was practically being handed to her on a gold platter. 

“What about my job? Do I just quit?” Her rational mind took over to ask the necessary questions. “Will I have something to go back to when this is all over?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Lyla assured her with a wave of her hand. “You’re not the first person we’ve poached from the FBI. As far as your co-workers and supervisors will be concerned, you’ll have transferred to a new division—free to return to your current assignment once you’ve completed your commission for us. Or… you might decide that you want to stay at ARGUS. I’m certain that there is a place for you in our research department. You have a very impressive CV from your time at MIT.” She drummed her fingers on the table and eyed her like she was a puzzle and she was trying to figure out what the pieces she had in the file on her fit into the person sitting in front of her. “And outside of that. You interned with your family’s company, but you don’t work there.” 

It wasn’t voiced like a question, but Lena could tell that she was probing. “Interned” wasn’t really the best term; it had been more like  _ ‘bring your daughter to work day,’  _ every day for years upon years. Making it clear the entire time that she would never be as important as her big brother. 

“I didn’t want a career based on nepotism,” she answered simply, barely scraping the surface of the touchy subject. She fiddled with her bracelet, sliding it around her wrist. “I might eventually move into the Science and Technology Branch of the Feds, or something similar in the private sector, but I thought some time out of a lab would be a good experience for me.”

“Hmm. Well, those options would of course still be available to you after this business is settled.” An agent appeared at Lyla’s side and leaned down to whisper something inaudible to her before slipping back to his post at the door. “I’m afraid there’s something I must attend to. Would you like 24 hours to consider my proposal?”

* * *

“I still can’t believe ARGUS is real.”

“Shhh…” Lena hushed Sam and glanced around, paranoid. But the soccer moms were too preoccupied with cheering on their daughters to pay any attention to her conversation with Sam about the meeting with Director Michaels the night before. As if anyone would even know what they were talking about anyway if they did overhear.

She had given Sam a brief summary of the evenings’ events after making it back to her car, assuring her of her safety, and the discussion had picked back up when they arrived at the park for Ruby’s first game that morning. Technically she probably wasn’t supposed to have told anyone about ARGUS, or their proposal to her, but she wasn’t going to  _ not _ tell Sam. She would have smelled a secret all over her. 

Sam covered her mouth, “Sorry.” Lowering her voice to a whisper, she continued, “So have you decided? Are you going to take the job?” She shook her head, “I don’t know why I’m even asking you that, of course you’re going to. You have to.” 

Lena raised an eyebrow at her, “I thought you said this was an unhealthy obsession?” 

“It is  _ verging _ on an unhealthy obsession. Which is why you need to take this opportunity so that you can finally have a chance to get this girl and stop obsessing over her.”

Sam passed her a thermos and Lena took a sip, choking a little in surprise, “What is this?” 

“Coffee?” 

“This is not coffee, this is just straight creamer.” 

Sam rolled her eyes at her, “It is not.”

She handed her back the thermos, “It might as well be. Remember when you could handle your coffee black? What happened to you?” 

“Don’t change the subject. Are you taking the job?” 

“I want to. I just—“ She chewed on her bottom lip, let her gaze drift to the girls in pigtails and purple and green jerseys chasing the ball down the field with determination. “What if I fail? What if I can’t find her?”

_ What if she kills me for trying?  _

“Are you even listening to yourself right now?” Sam rounded on her, placing the hand that wasn’t holding her thermos on her shoulder and tightening her fingers into a vice grip that made Lena grimace. “You are Lena fu—“ Sam glanced down at the kids who were playing Barbies on a picnic blanket within earshot. “Lena  _ freakin’ _ Luthor, who even at a college full of geniuses was the smartest person there by a mile—“

“Well actually…” 

Sam ignored her attempt to correct her and continued, “ _ And _ graduated top of her class at Quantico. This assassin cannot even dream of outsmarting you. The  _ only _ reason the FBI keeps sidelining the best agent they have is because of your shady ass brother, and it’s about damn time you stop letting him run your life.  _ Take. The. Job. _ ” 

Lena’s eyes were wide with shock by the time Sam punctuated her speech with a sip of her creamer with a splash of coffee. She wondered how long her friend had been holding back from letting all that out whenever she made self-deprecating comments. 

“Umm… okay. I guess I’m taking the job.” 

“Good. Even though it breaks my heart a little bit that we will no longer be office mates.” Sam leaned her head against Lena’s shoulder, “But I’ll survive.” 

“I can’t believe you almost said fuck in front of those kids,” Lena whispered teasingly a few seconds later. “I don’t think corrupting their children would’ve helped your case with the other moms. 

“Hey.” Sam smacked her. “It was a moment of passion. You’ve always had my back, always supported me. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have even finished the program at Quantico if you hadn’t talked me down through all of my breakdowns over thinking I was the worst mother in the world for spending so much time away from Ruby. I just want you to believe in yourself as much as you’ve always believed in me.” She dropped her voice low, “As much as this ARGUS director clearly believes in you.”

Lena reached for Sam’s hand and squeezed it, “Thank you. And you are the best mom in the world, even if the other soccer moms think you suck at snack duty.”

“I splurged for the organic granola bars and oranges so they better not think I suck.”

* * *

Astra nearly tripped over the package addressed to Linda Lee sitting outside the front of Kara’s door. The organization kept Kara well compensated for her work, and in turn she enjoyed a fair bit of online shopping. The apartment was filled with clothes, and books, and an assortment of kitchen gadgets that certainly never got used for cooking as her niece had yet to burn her whole building down—an indication that she was not doing any of her own cooking. If she recalled correctly, an oil tycoon they had set Kara on had met his demise from blunt force trauma to the head with a ceramic rolling pin though.

Scooping up the box, she let herself into the apartment, narrowly avoided a run in with the cat, and called out for her niece. She got a grunt in response and, following the general direction of the sound, found Kara doing pull-ups on the bar she had set up in her bathroom door frame.

At first, getting Kara to exercise—to train her body to be physically prepared for any scenario that might arise in her line of work, had been like pulling teeth. She had a naturally quick metabolism and had never needed to prioritize physical activity before to maintain her trim physique, even though she ate like a teenage boy. Her new personality had only made her even harder to convince of the merits of putting on some muscle. But, like murdering people in cold blood, she had eventually acquired a taste for pushing her body to its limits and Astra had watched her soft niece develop an exterior that matched the hardness of her heart.

Astra set the box on the coffee table. “Package came for you.” 

Kara dropped from the bar and wiped sweat from her face with the bottom of her tank-top. Grabbing a pair of scissors, she slit open the box and pulled out a tissue paper parcel that she unwrapped a red jacket from. It was a departure from her usual style, which mostly consisted of various shades of black. Astra watched as she held up the jacket for inspection, a satisfied smile spreading across her face, before gently and deliberately draping the jacket on the arm of the couch like she intended for it to be a part of her living room decor. 

She wasn’t going to even begin to try and psychoanalyse that. 

“I have some news,” Astra began as Kara dropped to the floor for push-ups. 

“A new assignment?” Kara asked, not breaking her metronome rhythm. 

Up. Down. Up. Down. 

“Soon. But first, the organization has decided it’s best for you to move away from National City.” 

They had made the decision the day of the incident at the safehouse, but Astra had wanted to wait for Kara to be in a more stable state of mind before breaking the news. Kara didn’t maintain any lingering fondness for her old life, or anyone from it. In the years since she had been taken into the organization and pumped full of Red Kryptonite she had not sought out her adoptive sister, hadn’t entered the doors of CatCo. That was the life that the old Kara had loved, the version of herself she now considered weak and pathetic. 

However, the familiarity of the place she had called home for years prior to her rebirth had been effective at keeping her just tethered enough to her humanity that she was still controllable… enough. And Astra knew firsthand that there was no need to hide when no one was looking for you—when you were dead to the world, which was why they had been able to let Kara (under her various fake identities) reside in National City for as long as they had. All of her assignments took her away to distant cities, so that the ensuing investigations never came too close to her home address—until the slaughter at the safehouse. It was time to get out of town, permanently. 

Kara stilled, paused at the top of her push-up in a plank position, and asked the floor, “Why?”

“Because we found you someplace even nicer than here. Bigger. With a jacuzzi tub.” 

It wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the truth. 

Kara dropped down to her stomach and rolled over to look up at her. Without a wig or any make-up altering her appearance, her cheeks a little pink from exercising and her freckles dotting her face, she looked so much like Alura had when they were younger. A knot formed in her throat. Sometimes she wished she had made different choices. That this wasn’t the state of her relationship with her niece. But Kara without Red Kryptonite never would’ve wanted to have anything to do with her. Her mind had undoubtedly been poisoned towards her by Alura before her death. 

She swallowed. This was the only way things could be. 

Kara crossed her arms over her chest, “What if I don’t want to move?”

Astra sighed. She knew her niece enjoyed being difficult for the sake of being difficult, but would ultimately do whatever was necessary to ensure she got a new target and the resulting paycheck, so she wasn’t in the mood for indulging her with a verbal sparring match. 

“That’s not your decision. If you want to continue your employment, if you want your next assignment, I’ll deliver it to you at your new address.” 

Pulling a slip of paper with said address out of her pocket, she left it on the coffee table and walked out before Kara could toss an argument back at her. 

* * *

“Before I give you my answer, I have one question,” Lena said into the phone, reclining in her chair to prop her feet up onto her desk. Photos of her assassin’s victims looked down on her from where she had pinned them to the world map hanging on her wall. “Can I assemble my own team? Only people I absolutely trust, of course.” 

Earlier, as they were eating a picnic lunch in between Ruby’s games, Lena had decided that she would take the job with ARGUS if she didn’t have to go it alone. Sam was right, she had already started to get unhealthily obsessed with her mystery assassin. And, she knew from past experience how she got when she isolated herself while she obsessed over a project, an idea, a challenge. Oftentimes, when she was young and still living at home, she would shut herself in the lab in the basement of the Luthor Manor for days at a time without speaking to anyone or remembering to eat or sleep. Working with other people helped to keep herself from becoming her own worst enemy. 

“I think that’s reasonable,” Lyla replied. “Let’s say—sorry, give me one moment.” Her voice became muffled and Lena thought she heard a child’s voice faintly in the background. She adjusted her perception of the woman she had met at the bar—the powerful director of a clandestine organization, to possibly include the title of mother. Was she withdrawn and cold, like her own mother had been? Or warm and nurturing underneath the intimidating ARGUS persona? A few seconds later Lyla resumed their conversation. “Let’s say three. You can have three.”

“Okay.” 

Sam was obviously her number one. Number two was Eve, they couldn’t just leave her at the FBI while they went off on their own secret mission. She was a good assistant, enjoyable to work with, and a Yale graduate who was incredibly overqualified for her job. As for the third… 

Tipping her head back in her chair, she caught a glimpse of a framed picture on the wall behind her from her college graduation—a face she hadn’t seen in person in too long. 

_ Bingo _ .

Now if they could just be convinced to get on board... 

“Does that mean you’re in?” Lyla asked as Lena began an internet search for some current contact information for her old friend. 

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. 

“I’m in.” 

* * *

“So ARGUS hasn’t had a big presence in National City for a long time now, but we maintained ownership of a building here just in case. You’ll be able to use it for your base of operations,” Lyla remarked, her eyes on her phone as the driver navigated them through a maze of side streets. “Although I’m afraid it hasn’t been outfitted with any new equipment recently.” 

After receiving confirmation from her the night before that she was interested in taking on the assignment, Lyla had made arrangements to meet up with her to go over some more details. And to show her where she would be working out of, because apparently her apartment wasn’t going to cut it for an official ARGUS sanctioned investigation. 

Lena drummed her fingers on her knees excitedly as they turned onto a Warner street, “Thank you, again, for this opportunity. No one at the FBI would even listen to my theory that all the victims were connected.” 

Lyla looked up at her with a probing expression, “Why do you think that is?” 

“I’ve had a hard time distancing myself from my brother.” Lena clasped her hands together in her lap and fiddled with the set of stacking rings that Sam had given her for her birthday the year before. “My reputation, that is. They don’t trust me with much.” 

“Ah. Well, at ARGUS, we’re not afraid to do things a little unconventionally. We would work with Lex Luthor himself if necessary for the greater good.” 

She winced and shook her head, “I wouldn’t recommend that.” 

Lyla laughed softly, “Fortunately for us then, the more agreeable Luthor was available. I won’t have much direct contact with you after today—I’m sure you understand I have a lot demanding my attention, but if there’s anything you need, ARGUS is at your disposal. We’ve taken care of Ms. Arias and Ms. Tessmacher’s transfers from the FBI… are you still planning on adding an additional person to your team?”

“Yeah. I’m working on that.” 


	3. You were a blonde?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! sorry for so long in between updates... i recently moved to a new state and started a new job so things have been a bit hectic, but now that i'm settling into a routine i should have time to get back to writing :D i hope you enjoy this chapter! (i'm introducing one of my favorite character pairings in this one, that tragically will never interact on screen because greg berlanti hates me)

“You’ve reached the Queen Consolidated IT department, how may I be of service?”

Lena smiled at the familiar voice, and the forced chipper-ness glossing over boredom. Good, she was bored. Of course she was bored. 

“Hi. I need help with a special project and I’m looking for one of your employees. Rumor has it she’s notorious for hacking into the Department of Education…?”

“Oh my god, Lena?!”

“Hi Smoak.”

Felicity Smoak had been her roommate at MIT and the first real friend she had ever had in her entire life. They had both started college young after skipping several grades and were on accelerated Masters tracks, so the housing department had naturally assumed it would be a good fit to put them together instead of with students several years their senior. On the surface, their childhoods could not have appeared more dissimilar, but they both had complicated relationships with their families that had produced a lot of the same insecurities that they hid underneath a carefully crafted persona. 

“Wow. It has been a long time since I’ve heard your voice.”

“Too long,” Lena replied. 

She had tried to get Felicity to apply with her for Quantico. With her father high on the Feds most wanted list though, she hadn’t wanted a career somewhere his reputation preceded her. At the time, Lena hadn’t understood, although she certainly could now. They had not parted on bad terms per se, they had just faded out of each other’s lives, lost touch. She didn't realize how much she regretted not trying to hold on to their friendship until she had been going through her box of things from college the night before that had brought back a flood of memories. 

Felicity was the only person she knew, besides Lex, who had been able to keep up with her intellectually, resulting in them collaborating on countless projects during their time at school. And she was a lot more fun to work with than Lex ever was. They had taught each other so much, filled in each other’s gaps in knowledge. Felicity had picked up on chess strategy from her, and she had learned how to play cards like a Vegas girl. She had given Felicity a crash course on genetics and bioengineering and in turn Felicity had taught her how to navigate the dark web. Even with what she knew about computers, her team wouldn’t be complete without her former partner in crime. She needed the master hacker herself if she was going to track down a ghost. 

“You mentioned something about a special project?” Felicity asked, bringing her back to the conversation. 

“Yeah. I’ve been commissioned by a secret government agency to put together a task force to track down an assassin. And I want you to be a part of it.”

There was silence on the other line for several seconds and Lena thought Felicity might have hung up on her before she eventually responded with, “What?”

“This woman… she’s eluded the Feds for months—they don’t even know she’s a she. But I do. I’ve been tracking her, studying the patterns in her victims. I’ve gotten closer to her than anyone. And now I have a chance to really go after her.”

“And you want my help.”

“Exactly! It’ll be just like old times. Except legal… ish.”

Admittedly, the hack into the Department of Education’s server was not the only illegal activity the two of them had gotten themselves into during college. It had all just been for fun and bragging rights on the dark web forum they had belonged to, but she was fortunate that Felicity had taught her how to keep her digital fingerprints off of things so nothing had shown up when the FBI was running her background check. 

“Ish?” Felicity echoed.

“C’mon. You can’t tell me that you are actually happy working in an IT department removing porn viruses and helping people set up their emails. How did you even end up at Queen Consolidated?”

“They have good benefits. Health, dental, vision. You know how bad my eyesight is, good vision coverage is a huge draw for me. The optometrist gets expensive.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “Felicity.”

She heard a sigh, muffled through her phone speaker before Felicity conceded, “Fine. You want the truth? I got scared. Scared of becoming my dad. My mom always went on and on about me being my father’s daughter and I felt like I was becoming more and more like him. He sent me a graduation card, you know? Years of radio silence and he sends me an actual physical paper card. Saying how proud he was of me, how I had already accomplished so much and was going to do even more great things. I didn’t want to do anything that my father, the criminal who abandoned me, would think is great. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I thought maybe if I found myself a nice boring, safe job, it would keep me from ending up just like him.”

Lena understood. It was the same reason she had distanced herself from her family, from their business operations. She didn’t want to get caught up in the power and the money, and in ten years look in the mirror and see Lillian looking back at her. 

But they were both selling themselves way too short by letting other people dictate their lives. 

“Okay but, you’re not your dad. And I’m not Lex, or my mom. We have to stop living our lives afraid of becoming them. But if you don’t want to help me with this, that’s okay. I know I’m asking you to uproot your life for an undetermined amount of time, and potentially put yourself in danger. Although, I feel like you kind of owe me for saving your life…” 

“Okay, that happened like the first weekend of our freshman year, I’m pretty sure I’ve long repaid you by now for saving me from my nut allergy, but—” She paused for a second and then continued, “Can I think about it?”

“Of course. Do you want to get back to me tomorrow or—”

“Never mind. I’m in. Let’s do it.”

Lena huffed in amusement, “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I just got a ticket asking for assistance setting up Microsoft Word. For the fourth time already this week. You’re right, I’m losing my mind here. But if I take a leave of absence to help you find your mystery girl, everything will probably go to shit while I’m gone because I’m the only competent person in this department, and maybe they’ll finally realize that and give me a promotion when I get back.” 

“You deserve to be running an entire company Felicity.” 

Felicity laughed, “I missed you.” 

“I missed you too.” 

“Remember when we hacked into your brother’s phone and filled his camera roll with Brittany Spears memes?” 

“And when he tried to delete them, they just duplicated?” Lena grinned at the memory. “Of course. Greatest Thanksgiving break ever. He had to get a brand new phone and he still has absolutely no idea that I was behind that.” 

* * *

Lena stood with Sam outside the nondescript brick building on Warner St. that had been given to them by Lyla to serve as their base of operations, waiting for Felicity to arrive. Eve was already inside, sorting through everything Lena had brought over from her apartment. She took a sip of her coffee, recoiling when it burned her tongue. It had been her hope when she popped into Noonan’s that morning that she would find herself in line with her mystery girl—not to be confused with her other mystery girl, the murderous one—but no dice. She had yet to see her again since their first encounter. Instead she had been stuck in between two people who were having very loud phone conversations that had blended together into a dialogue on wind farming and book deadlines. 

A red Mini Coop with it’s bumper stickered in a bisexual flag in the shape of a heart, _ “Code Like a Girl,” _ the NASA logo, and “ _ L'Chaim Bitches! _ ” slowed down as it approached the address before slipping into a parking space along the street. Out of the car stepped a Felicity Smoak that looked vastly different than the one she had said goodbye to after their commencement ceremony a little over two years ago. 

Gone were the black clothes, dark hair, and purple lipstick. In their place, she had on a floral print button down with an oversized pale pink cardigan over top, glasses instead of the contacts she used to always wear, and a bouncy golden blonde ponytail. 

Lena blinked in surprise at the startling difference as Felicity approached them. The only thing she managed to say in greeting was, “You’re blonde!” 

Felicity grinned and pulled her in for a hug. “And you’re not blonde.” 

“You were a blonde?” Sam asked from off to the side, extending a hand to Felicity. “Hi, I’m Sam.”

“Felicity. So nice to meet you.” 

Lena turned to address Sam’s question, “The weekend before Thanksgiving break, freshman year, Felicity bleached my hair in the bathroom of our dorm room and so commenced several years of having blonde hair. My mom absolutely freaked out when she saw it. Which is exactly why I did it. I think my hair is still recovering from being routinely bleached in college.” 

“Sometimes I would give her purple streaks to match mine,” Felicity chimed in. “We made quite the pair during our goth phase.” 

Sam’s eyebrows ascended into her hairline, “Goth phase? Please tell me you have pictures of this. I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me for this long.” 

Lena waved a hand dismissively, “We’ll take a trip down memory lane later. For now let’s get Felicity’s stuff unloaded.” 

She had given Felicity a rundown of the equipment that had been in the old ARGUS office when Lyla brought her by the other day. Predictably, Felicity had told her she would be bringing her own computers because she couldn’t be expected to do her best work without her babies. 

Inside they went, carrying carefully packed boxes from the trunk and backseat of the Mini Coop, and setting everything up to Felicity’s specifications on the desk they had designated for her. 

“Okay, so where do we start?” Felicity asked once they had her computers powered up, dipping her hand into the bag of fries from the Big Belly lunch they had picked up. 

Lena made a mental note to stock the small downstairs kitchen with some healthier food options or their collective blood pressure was going to be through the roof by the time they were through with their assignment. If meal planning was left up to her friends they would all be eating a balanced diet of pancakes, Big Belly Burger, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and wine. 

Sam surveyed the map that had been transplanted from Lena’s home office. “Has the assassin hit any targets since the safehouse?” 

Lena shook her head, “As far as we know, she’s gone dark.” 

Felicity moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Sam and tapped on the photograph of Nadiya pinned to the location of the safehouse, “Okay then we start there.”

“That’s a dead end,” Lena replied. “Literally, since everyone who was there is dead. Plus, the circuits were tripped, disabling the security cameras. And it’s in a pretty remote location so there’s only one neighboring house, about a hundred and fifty yards away or so, and the occupants were away the weekend of Nadiya’s murder.” 

She didn’t really know much about the neighbors, only that they were paid a generous sum by the FBI to put up with the occasional ruckus. 

Felicity glanced over her shoulder at her, “Do the neighbors have security cameras?” 

“Nope,” Sam answered. “They’re kind of odd. I met them one time when I was on a protection detail a few months ago.  _ Very _ into birds.” 

“Hmm…” Felicity tilted her head thoughtfully. “Can we go up there? To the safehouse? Just to poke around a bit…” 

“I don’t see why not… I don’t think it’s in use right now. But I don’t know what we’re going to find there.” Lena raked a hand through her hair. “The FBI already went over the place with a fine tooth comb and came back with zero leads.”

Walking over to her desk to pick up her tablet, Felicity gave her a look she recognized all too well from years of shared shenanigans. “Okay well, the FBI didn’t have me so...” 

Lena shrugged, an amused smile turning up the corners of her mouth, “Fair point.” 

Eve clapped her hands together enthusiastically, “Road trip!”

They needed to get her out more often if going to visit a house where a bunch of people had been murdered provoked that much excitement. Although to be fair, Lena was pretty excited too. 

They all needed to get out more often. 

Sam took the driver’s seat on the way to the safehouse and proceeded to ask Felicity questions about what it had been like being roommates with Lena in college. 

“I thought she was going to be completely insufferable,” Felicity admitted. “The first day of school I woke up to the sound of her blender and she was making a smoothie that resembled swamp water.” 

In the rearview mirror Lena could see Sam wrinkle her nose in disgust, “Blegh. She’s made me taste that kale and spirulina concoction, it’s horrendous.” 

“It’s nutritious.” Lena argued. “Felicity was a terrible influence on me. By the time I graduated I considered Red Bull and Twizzlers a meal. I think my cells are still trying to regenerate.” 

“She was so high strung before my  _ terrible _ influence.”

“Even more high strung than she is now?” Sam asked, and Lena kicked the back of her seat in retaliation. She was starting to think that the reason why she hadn’t called Felicity up in the last two years was because her subconscious was protecting her from being double teamed by her two best friends. Sam reached back to swat at her, “Hey! I’m driving!” 

Eve gripped tightly onto the handle affixed to the passenger side door as the car swerved and Lena thought she heard her whisper faintly,  _ “Then please keep both hands on the wheel.”  _

“I dragged her to a party the first weekend of school,” Felicity continued. 

“Where she proceeded to go into anaphylactic shock because she ate a pot brownie with nuts in it and I had to use my emergency epi-pen on her,” Lena added with an eye roll. 

Felicity was lucky she also had a nut allergy, that she always liked to be prepared for, and that she didn’t eat baked goods handed to her by white girls with dreadlocks. 

Her former roommate grinned and patted her thigh, “And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

When they got up to the safehouse, Felicity asked them to continue on to the neighbor’s house where she hopped out of the car to inspect the front yard. 

“See this?” she called, waving them over. “They have cameras watching their bird feeders, but the safehouse is also in some of the sightlines.” 

“How much do you want to bet no one thought to check that footage,” Sam muttered, unbuckling her seat belt. 

“Do we think they even thought to look for a bird cam?” Lena asked, following her out of the car. 

Felicity was tapping away on her tablet when they walked over to her. “One of the guys in my department bought some of these cameras for his mom for a mother’s day present this year.” She glanced up at them, “That’s the kind of thrilling conversation you can expect from the break room in the QC IT department. I started eating at my desk.” Looking back down at her screen to continue tapping away, she continued, “When you mentioned the neighbors being into birds, I thought there might be a chance they have some too.” 

“Should we see if they’re home then?” Eve asked. 

Felicity kept her focus on what she was doing but crinkled her brow at the question, “Huh?” 

“So we can take a look at the footage...” Sam elaborated. 

“Oh that’s not necessary.” Felicity held up her tablet. “I’m in. Just give it a minute or two and I’ll have everything downloaded from the morning of the break-in. I’m probably going to have to enhance the background imaging though, since the focus is on the feeders. I’ll need a program I have installed on my computer back at the base for that. And I can set up an algorithm to sort through for any abnormalities in the imaging, to see if it picked up any human activity.” 

Sam let out an impressed whistle, “Okay then. You should probably get all the footage from the day before too, someone might’ve been casing the property during my shift—after Nadiya was first moved in.” 

Felicity nodded and once she had finished downloading the footage, they loaded back up into the car to head back to the city.

* * *

Kara trailed her fingertips through the thick layer of bubbles forming pillowy clouds on top of her bath water. An unfamiliar nighttime skyline greeted her through the window. She had not wanted to move. She liked her old apartment. She liked the familiarity of the city streets. She wanted to see the devastatingly beautiful woman in the red jacket again, at Noonan’s when she stopped in for her morning coffee. Instead she got her coffee at a place called Jitters that did not sell cinnamon rolls, but did have something they called a cronut, which she supposed was a tolerable substitute. 

There was no substitute for the stranger with the long dark hair and piercing green eyes. It was hard for her to remember the last time she had felt anything for another person, she had evolved beyond such limitations, but the woman at Noonan’s had made her want to feel something. An indescribable pull. 

She knew by now she should’ve long squashed whatever the emotions were that bubbled up whenever she closed her eyes and let her mind wander to that morning. The way a blush had risen up in the woman’s cheeks to match the color of her jacket. Her tongue peeking out to lick her lips. 

Emotions made people weak and she was free from them… at least she was supposed to be. She thought about the red jacket, hanging in her closet like a neon sign amongst a backdrop of black. Evidence of a moment of weakness. She should burn it. 

Hearing a creak in the floorboards, she reached for the knife she had balancing on the edge of the tub and raised it up—poised to send it spiraling into the intruders’ sternum. 

“Kara.” 

The door to the bathroom opened up and in stepped her aunt. Astra took a look at the knife, the expression on her face bored, like she was daring Kara to toss it at her. Kara almost did. Instead she set the knife down and crossed her arms over her bare chest in protest of the invasion of privacy. 

“Don’t look at me.”

“Child, I was there at your birth. I saw your naked ass come out of the womb.” Astra perched on the side of the tub and flicked bubbles at her. “Besides, your modesty is being preserved by the fact that you dumped an entire bottle of bubble bath in here.”

She knew that she was probably supposed to harbor some sort of fondness for her aunt—blood relation and all that, but she was seriously contemplating drowning her in the bathtub. If it wasn’t for the possibility that the targets and subsequent paychecks could stop coming if she offed her direct link to her benefactors, she would do it. As retribution for making her move. 

Although it didn’t seem like it had been Astra’s idea. No, it was the organization, without a name that she had been privy to, that was pulling her strings, directing her life. Normally she didn't mind. Let them think they controlled her, as long as they kept providing her with the means to maintain her current lifestyle. They probably had some noble “make the world a better place” motive behind what they were doing, who they were having her eliminate, but she just reveled in the rush of power that flooded her veins whenever she successfully handled a target. 

Just this once though, she was irritated with whoever had pulled her strings away from National City. She had not wanted to move. 

“Am I finally getting a new assignment?” she asked, scooping up a handful of bubbles and blowing them in Astra’s direction.

Astra slipped a thumb drive from her pocket and set it on the windowsill next to the tub. “Yes. But you need to be subtle this time. Enough theatrics. After the stunt you pulled with Nadiya Petrov, ARGUS has people looking for you.”

Kara pinched her face in confusion, “ARGUS?” 

“Congratulations, you’ve officially become notorious enough to warrant involving the government’s most top secret special ops division. Would you like me to clap? Bake you a cake?”

Kara cut her a glare, “How do you know about it?”

“Always know thy enemy,” Astra answered vaguely. Getting up from the edge of the tub to leave, she added over her shoulder, “Yours, more specifically, is named Lena Luthor. She’s heading up the search for you.” 

After Astra had gone and the water in the tub had turned tepid, Kara got out to towel off and slip into her pajamas. Climbing into her bed with her laptop, she typed into Google:  _ Lena Luthor _ and skimmed the results her query kicked back. 

**_Lex Luthor Arrested for Weapons Trafficking_ **

**_The Secrets and Lies of the Luthor Family_ **

Her cat jumped up onto the bed and deposited itself on top of her keyboard, blocking the screen. Annoyed, she nudged her aside, earning herself an angry hiss that she returned before turning her attention back to her search. 

**_MIT Sophomores Lena Luthor and Felicity Smoak present at Annual Research Symposium_ **

**_Lena Luthor (@lenaluthor) • Instagram photos and videos_ **

Most of the articles were old or seemingly unrelated. She clicked on the Instagram link to find a locked private account with a grand total of six followers and a profile picture of a face completely obscured by a coffee mug that bore a diagram of the chemical structure of caffeine. 

_ “Know thy enemy.” _

She grabbed a pad of sticky notes and a pencil from her bedside table and wrote down:  _ Nerd.  _

Pursing her lips in frustration, she hit back to return to her search results and clicked over to the “images” tab. 

Immediately, she felt the air being sucked out of her lungs, her spine stiffening. Clicking on one of the photos to enlarge it, she found herself looking into the green eyes that had been making frequent appearances in her dreams. 

Throwing her laptop aside, she hopped from her bed and tore upon her closet doors. Inside, the red jacket mocked her. She pulled it out, and shrugged it on over her shoulders-- ran her hands down the soft fabric of the sleeves. 

A wicked smile turned up the corners of her mouth and she bit her lip in anticipation. 

She was coming for her. 

* * *

Lena paced the small office space impatiently while Felicity worked her magic on the footage she had retrieved from the bird feeder cams. She was trying to keep her expectations low. Realistically, she knew it was a long shot that anything had been picked up by the cameras that could be useful to them. But she couldn’t help the spark of hope that there would be something. Something they could take another step forward with, instead of staying stuck in the waiting for the assassin to strike again. 

“Okay so this program is going to have to run for a while. This computer is powerful but sadly not the most efficient, and there are a lot of frames to be analyzed.”

Lena paused her pacing and walked over to Felicity’s desk. “And by a while, you mean…?” 

Felicity tipped her head back to look up at her, “Probably like three hours?”

Lena sighed in frustration at having to wait any longer and Sam slung an arm over her shoulder, “Why doesn’t everyone come over to my house, and I can make pancakes… and then we can come back afterwards and it’ll be ready.”

“I love a good breakfast for dinner situation,” Eve piped up from where she had her feet propped up on her desk and was reading two books at once, one in each hand. In her left was a novel that had a shirtless man wearing a cowboy hat on the cover and the one in her right was entitled,  _ “Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality.”  _

Lena did a double take before exchanging a look with Sam, who just shrugged. 

“Okay, so that’s settled.” Sam checked her watch, “Perfect timing too. I promised Ruby’s babysitter I’d get home in time for her to meet her friends at a movie.” 

* * *

“So…” Felicity pulled an envelope filled with polaroid photographs out of her bag. After eating stacks of pancakes and cleaning up the kitchen, they had migrated to the living room to wait out the remainder of the time until Felicity’s algorithm had run its course. “I think you wanted to see these Sam…”

Felicity won a polaroid camera in a raffle when they went to a freshman mixer hosted by the Student Activities Department—their first and only appearance at a school sanctioned social function—and it had been used to chronicle the highs and lows of their college experience. And the… interesting style choices they had made during that time. 

“Oh god. You actually brought them with you? You couldn’t have just burned them?” Lena tipped back her wineglass before settling down on the armchair across from her. 

Felicity clutched them to her chest, “Never. I need to have a visual reminder of my questionable personal aesthetic choices so that I never make them again. Just be glad we weren’t posting them on the internet where anyone could find them.” 

She handed the envelope to Sam and Ruby perched onto her lap to look at them too.

“Aunt Lena your hair was so cool!” Ruby remarked.. She looked up at her mom, “Can I get purple in my hair too?” 

“You’ll have to ask Felicity, apparently she’s the master stylist behind this look,” Sam flipped the photograph to show the room and Lena cringed. 

The picture captured her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail to reveal chunky streaks of purple while she looked into a microscope in the lab where she had assisted her genetics professor on a research study for an elective credit. Felicity would often come by and work on homework to keep her company while she prepared microscope slides and cleaned test tubes. Her eye makeup was heavy and dark and so was her lipstick. So, right in the midst of the aforementioned goth phase. Underneath the lab coat was undoubtedly an outfit straight out of one of the Twilight villains' wardrobes. 

Was tormenting her mother worth having  _ that  _ look? Yes. 

“Why aren’t you wearing any shirts in this one?” Ruby asked curiously, peering at another poloroid she had slipped from the envelope. 

“What?” Sam’s eyes widened and she swiped the picture away from her.

Lena held out her hand for it and surveyed the image of a group of girls, including her and Felicity, in various states of undress. “Ahh yes. One year we somehow ended up on the same hall as the women’s swim team… and we played a lot of strip poker with them.”

“They were hot,” Felicity added wistfully. “ _ Very  _ sturdy shoulders.” 

Lena closed her eyes and nodded in agreement. 

Ruby tilted her head in confusion, “What’s strip po—”

Sam clapped her hands together, “Okay! I think we’ve spent enough time on memory lane. Look at the time… we should be going back to check on the video footage. Ruby why don’t you go get your pajamas on.”

“Sorry.” Felicity apologized as Ruby left the room and she took the pictures back to stow away in her bag. “I forgot these were not all PG rated.” 

“It’s okay. And I definitely want to see the rest later. I just don’t want to have to explain to my seven year old any of the extracurricular activities you two were involved with.” She retrieved her phone from the coffee table and stood up to excuse herself, “I’m going to see if one of the neighbors can come over for Ruby and then we can head back. 

* * *

When they returned to Warner street, they were rewarded for their patience for a few frames containing a blurry, but distinctly human figure.

“Okay so now I just need to enhance the background…” Felicity muttered, hitting a few keys and bringing the first image into focus.

“So that’s what happened to my milkshakes,” Lena commented from over her shoulder when she caught the unmistakable red and yellow logo emblazoned sharpening on the cups the perpetrator was carrying. 

The woman was wearing all black—from what she could tell by the small glimpse of her in the corner of the image: leggings, combat boots, and a bomber jacket. Her hair was pulled back into a dark blonde french braid. It was a side profile and her head was ducked, giving them little to work with in regards to her appearance. 

“Did any of the cameras catch her from the front?” Lena asked. 

“Give me one second…” Felicity swiped through a few more of the frames until she found one that looked promising to run the background enhancement on. “And...” She enlarged the image for them to see as they all leaned in closer to the computer screen. “Our lady killer officially has a face.” 

Lena squinted. She had seen that face before. Why had she seen that face before? 

Then it hit her. Add some dark bangs—which apparently were a wig, and the woman on the screen was the same one she had been thinking about since encountering her at Noonan’s. 

Taking a small step back, she closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Fuck.” 


	4. Are you all going to Vegas?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends!! i hope you're all still enjoying this story, i would love to hear what you think of this chapter :D

_ “Our lady killer officially has a face.”  _

This had to be some kind of joke. When she had surmised that jacket girl was dangerous, she hadn’t meant that in a literal, murder-y way. 

And she hadn’t pictured the assassin as someone who stood in line for cinnamon rolls at Noonan’s and paid compliments to strangers. 

Her brain was trying to reconcile the two people as the same person and it was giving her a headache. 

She also must’ve still been muttering expletives because Felicity spun around in her chair to say, “Lena, this is a good thing. We have like, a pretty clear shot of her face. I can improve our search algorithms now and we’ll get a ping on her in no ti—”

“I’ve met her,” Lena interrupted Felicity. 

“What?” “When?” “Where?” Sam, Eve, and Felicity all asked at the same time, their questions an overlapping jumble. 

“Have you been attending psychopaths anonymous meetings recently?” 

Lena shot a look at Sam before answering, “I met her at Noonan’s. It was a very brief encounter…” Her voice trailed off into a whisper and she ducked her head, “That has had a lasting impact.” 

Sam blinked. “Oh. Wow.” 

Felicity looked back over her shoulder at the screen, “I mean, if you ignore the fact that she’s murdered countless people and there’s blood from her most recent victim on her face in this particular image… yeah she’s hot, so I can see how that would be—I can see why you would fantasize about her.” 

“I didn’t say anything about fantasizing.” 

“It seemed like that was kind of implied,” Sam said. 

Lena raised her hands defensively, “There was one dream. One! And it was only mildly sexual.” 

“Okay well, did you happen to get a name while you were flirting with her?” Felicity asked. 

“I didn’t—she flirted with me.”  _ Or it was an entirely non-flirtatious compliment. _ “I didn’t flirt,” Lena insisted. 

Sam shook her head, her face a mix of amusement and disbelief, “I can’t believe I almost said no to getting involved in this.” 

Hurt flashed across Lena’s face, “You were going to say no?” 

Sam hesitated for a second before letting out a small laugh. “What? No. I mean I was obviously a little bit worried about leaving my secure job to work for an agency that no one knows exists when I have a child to provide for but—” 

“A name?” Felicity piped up. “Lena, did you get a name?” 

“Well I doubt she was giving her real name out at our friendly neighborhood coffee shop.” Lena crossed her arms over her chest, “But it was Laura. No… Lena.” She shook her head. “That’s my name. Lana. Linda. Linda, definitely Linda. I’m sorry I’m spiraling a little bit right now.” 

“Tiny boxes.” Sam put a hand on her shoulder. “Normally I don’t advise this, but now is the correct scenario during which to employ the tiny boxes.” 

“I’m currently putting the fact that you didn’t want to work with me in a tiny box.”

Sam frowned, “I didn't say that.”

“Okay I’m sensing some tension, so maybe we should all just take a few deep breaths and say something we love about each other,” Eve interjected, reminding them all of her presence. 

Lena looked over at her, “That’s a great suggestion Elle Woods. You going to pull the snap cup out?”

Confusion crinkled her face, “What?”

“Eve have you never seen Legally Blonde?” Sam asked. 

Felicity paused her typing to look up at them. “Well the snap cup is in the sequel, remember? Which is not as popular so…”

“Did you know they’re making a third one?”

“I saw that.” Felicity nodded. “On Reese Witherspoon’s Twitter.”

“So, are we going to accomplish anything else productive tonight? Because if not I’d like to go home…” Eve fiddled with her bracelet. “And watch Legally Blonde 2.”

Lena sighed, “I don’t think so. But we’ve got a picture now, that’s good. That’s more than the FBI has gotten and they’ve had quite the headstart on us. Felicity, you’re going to set up a search?”

“Yep. I’ve already started setting up facial recognition with all the major databases I know. TSA can be a little tricky to crack, but I’ve been craving a good challenge, so I’ll get to that straight away tomorrow morning. We’ll want to keep tabs if anyone with an ID matching your girlfriend’s face travels anywhere via plane.” Felicity gestured to the map. “She seems to be a frequent flier.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Okay, but if she wasn’t a violent killer…”

“Well she is.”

* * *

Shedding the maid’s uniform she was wearing to reveal the plunging black dress underneath and stuffing the dull gray frock under the cleaning cart, Kara retrieved the bottle of wine she had stashed there. After ensuring that the hallway was still quiet, she set the wine down on the decorative table positioned flush against the wall so she could check her reflection in the mirror hung above it.

She straightened her wig of choice for the evening—a glossy red bob that she had purchased a month ago after watching an episode of Mad Men that the person next to her on a train had been playing on their phone. She had wanted to know if she looked good as a redhead, like the character whose name she didn’t know, because her seatmate had been watching with headphones and hadn’t had the courtesy to turn on closed captions. 

Her lip reading was subpar at best, and she really couldn’t be bothered to take the time to use Google to acquire a useless piece of knowledge. 

The useful piece of knowledge was that she looked positively beguiling as a redheaded temptress. How tragic that it was going to be wasted on a disgusting man. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the blinking light of a camera trained on her and she turned her head deliberately in its direction. Maybe not a complete waste. 

Smoothing her hands down the fabric of her dress, she gave herself one last look in the mirror before heading down the hallway in the direction of her mark. 

* * *

When they got to Warner Street the next morning, Felicity got to work on hacking the TSA while Lena enlisted Sam and Eve to help her go through the files that ARGUS had sent over to see if there was anything in them that they didn’t already know. 

About 30 minutes into their work, all of their phones started pinging simultaneously. 

“What is that?” Sam asked, reaching for her phone. 

“News alert. A tech magnate was found dead in his hotel room this morning in Las Vegas,” Eve reported. 

Felicity spun around in her chair to face them, “It’s being reported as a heart attack but… dollars to doughnuts, Miss _ Linda _ is somehow involved. Powerful man. Possibly involved in some shady shit.” She turned back to her computer and started pulling up more information, “His company has military contracts… oh, and the unreleased police report contradicts the hotel’s statement. Crime lab found traces of poison in a bottle of wine that was found staining the carpet in the room a lovely shade of red. That’s fun. Fits her M.O.” 

“She doesn’t have an M.O.” Lena pointed out. “Except for being a drama queen. So yeah, this fits. It makes sense that the hotel would try to spin it as a heart attack though. Homicides don’t exactly drum up business. Talk about a PR nightmare. Eve, make arrangements for us to get to Vegas ASAP.” Lena drummed her fingers on her desk thoughtfully. “What I wouldn’t give for one of the LuthorCorp jets right now… see if ARGUS has something faster than a commercial flight for us.” 

Eve nodded and gave her a little two fingered salute, “You got it boss.” 

Felicity pushed her glasses on top of her head and massaged her temples, muttering, “Out of all the places…” 

Lena stood up and walked over to her to put a hand on her shoulder, “Hey. We don’t have to see your mom while we’re there...” 

Felicity looked up at her, “She works at the Grand, where the murder took place. Even if she didn’t see anything, she knows people who might’ve. We would be stupid not to talk to her.” 

Sam raised her hand, “Question: does anyone in this group have a good relationship with their mother?” 

“No, that was one of my criteria for choosing all of you,” Lena joked, earning her a soft laugh from Felicity. She gave her friend a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. 

“I’m going to run a search on the TSA database and see if anyone with the name Linda flew into Vegas yesterday, or the day before.” Felicity spun back around towards her computer, “See if any of them resemble our Linda.” 

“Are you all going to Vegas?” Eve asked, holding her phone over her shirt. “That will determine whether or not they send us a jet or a helicopter.” 

“I can stay here and keep monitoring things in case something develops somewhere else,” Sam offered. “That way I don’t have to find someone last minute to watch Ruby.” She looked over to Felicity who was scrolling through travel records, “Unless you want to avoid your mother.” 

Felicity glanced back over her shoulder, “No, I should go. I know the city best.” 

Lena nodded, “Okay Eve. Make it travel accommodations for three.” 

Eve pointed at herself, “I’m going too?”

“Unless you don’t want too…” 

Excitement flickered in her eyes and she only weakly protested with, “But I’m not field trained.” 

“You’ll be fine. Nothing dangerous is going to happen. We’re just going to ask some questions, poke around a bit, there’s no way Linda is still in the city.” 

* * *

“Good work. You have a flight home in three hours. I’m sending you your boarding pass now.” 

“No.” Kara held her phone against her ear with her shoulder while she shimmied into a pair of jeans. “I’m staying.” 

“You’re staying?” Astra asked incredulously. 

“Yes.”

“At the hotel where an investigation is currently being conducted for the murder that you committed.” 

“Of course not. I don’t have a room there. I have a room at the Paris hotel.” Kara looked out the window at the imitation Eiffel tower. “It’s not as classy as Paris. When are you going to give me an assignment abroad again? I miss Europe.” 

“Kara. You need to get on that flight.” 

“Do I really though?” she asked before hanging up and tossing her phone onto her bed. 

Astra would be angry at her instructions being disregarded, but she would get over it. Her Aunt was plagued with the unfortunate predicament of having a fondness for her that allowed her to get away with things. 

She knew it wouldn’t be long before Lena arrived in the city and she wanted to indulge herself a glance at her corporeal form instead of the photograph on her bedside table at home—wrinkled from many attempts to ball it up and chuck in the trash, only to be withdrawn a few hours later. It was a losing battle, quelling her irrational fascination with the woman, and one she was tired of fighting. 

* * *

Their helicopter touched down at a private ARGUS airstrip outside of the city limits of Las Vegas at 3:34pm. A car was waiting for them at the airstrip to take them to the Grand where arrangements had been made for Lena to meet with the detective overseeing the investigation, under the guise of an FBI agent consulting on the case. Which up until a few days ago wasn’t even much of a lie, and as far as anyone at the FBI knew was still the truth, so it wouldn’t be that hard of a cover to maintain. She still had her badge, safely tucked into her back pocket. 

She had no intention of actually working with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. She just wanted to know what they had turned up so far that hadn’t made it into their digital database for Felicity to swipe. 

While the car crawled its way down the strip, Lena texted Sam to let them know that they had arrived safely. In return she got a picture of Ruby in her soccer uniform giving two thumbs up. 

**SAM: on our way to practice**

**SAM: be safe!!! don’t do anything stupid**

**LENA: when have i ever done anything stupid?**

Sam sent her the side eye emoji in response and she laughed, sliding her phone back into her pocket. The two of them had worked through the tension that had arisen between them the night before. Out of the heat of the moment she did truly understand why Sam would hesitate to take the assignment. Their normal jobs were dangerous enough, and she had someone who needed her to come home every night. But she was glad that ultimately her friend had chosen to partner with her on tracking down the assassin. 

They were deposited at the Grand with a number to text when they needed a pick-up and they made their way into the lobby. The hotel and law enforcement had done a good job with keeping the investigation low profile. Things were humming along as normal, an oblivious guest wouldn’t even know that a few floors up a crime had been committed. 

“Is your mom here now?” Lena asked Felicity. 

“No, she works night shifts. At least she used to.” 

“Does your mom know we’re here?” 

“Not.. yet. But I’m going to text her.” She slipped her phone out of her pocket, “I’m texting her now.” 

“Okay, Eve, are you good to wait here with our luggage?” Lena gestured to a comfortable looking seating area. 

They hadn’t been able to book a room at the Grand last minute, so instead they had gotten a room at the Fremont a block over, where they would be checking in after her rendezvous with the LVMPD. 

Eve plopped down on the couch and extracted her books from her tote bag, “Not a problem.” 

“Thank you. I’m going to go meet with the detective and Felicity—”

She held up her tablet, “I’m going to get a head start on looking through the security footage from last night.”

“Good plan.” She was about to head towards the bar where she was supposed to have her meeting before remembering to ask, “Did you ever have any luck with the TSA?” 

Felicity shook her head, “No. No one with the name of Linda flying into Vegas in the past few days that matched the image we have of her. I did just a straight image search too and nothing. If she’s smart, which she obviously is, she has multiple aliases. She also could’ve flown into another regional airport and taken alternative transportation to get here. Or not flown at all...” 

“Right. Well, we already knew she was here—or at least we think we do, however she got here. It just would’ve been nice to have a clue as to where she came from. Thanks for looking into it.” 

“You’re welcome. I set up a facial recognition alert, so if she does fly somewhere, undisguised, we’ll be notified. Now go have your meeting, I’ll see if I have better luck with the security footage.” 

As she walked across the lobby to the entrance to the bar to meet up with the detective, she couldn’t shake the sensation that she was being watched. It was likely that someone just recognized her from the news, from the footage of her testimonial during Lex’s trial, but she couldn’t help the paranoia that crawled up her arms.

Rolling her shoulders back and taking a quick inconspicuous glance around, she stepped inside the bar and flashed her badge at the detective waiting for her at a table. 

“Special Agent Luthor,” the woman stood up to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Nice to meet you too, Detective. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. I promise I won’t hold you up from your investigation for long.” 

“It’s not a problem.” She picked up a file folder from the table, “Here are the photos from the crime scene. I’ve been interviewing staff since I arrived this morning, including the maids responsible for that floor. One of them thought she remembered seeing a woman in uniform that they didn’t recognize, but they just assumed she was new.” She pointed at the file that Lena was idly flipping through the contents of. “There’s a sketch in there.” 

Lena found the sketch, traced her fingers over the lines of a face that was becoming familiar. Some of the features were off, but it was definitely her. 

“The description she gave for her doesn’t match anyone in the employee database,” the detective continued. “However she said she only saw her briefly from a distance, and there  _ were _ three new maids hired recently, so it very well could’ve been one of them. Our more concrete lead, the one that we’re pursuing, comes from a bartender who spotted the victim having an argument earlier in the evening with a woman that we matched as his ex-fiance. Who was also staying here at the hotel.” 

Lena flipped to a photocopy of a tabloid cover featuring said ex-fiance in the file and hummed in faux agreement, “Jilted lover.”

She didn’t know why she was intentionally steering the poor woman in the wrong direction. 

Actually, she did know. She just didn’t want to admit how possessive she was over this case. The LVMPD was way out of its league with this assassin. Let them waste their time on the wrong woman, it would keep them out of her way. 

“Yeah. Wouldn’t be the first time. She checked out early this morning before the body was found by housekeeping, but we’re working on finding her.” 

“Well, seems like you’re on the right track then.” Lena gave her a laugh that she hoped came across as slightly self-deprecating and not fake. “I don’t know why they even bothered bringing me in. I will stop wasting more of your time and let you get back to your interviews. Good luck!” 

She stood up from the table with the file in her hand and made a quick, and awkward, departure from the bar before the detective could ask why she needed the photos if she wasn’t intending on assisting with the case. 

On her way back to the lobby, she ran into Felicity, who asked how it went with the detective. 

“It was definitely her, Linda.” She held up the file. “I have the sketch from the maid who saw her on the floor last night. And some transcripts from the staff interview, crime scene pictures, etc.” 

“Nice. I got the security footage from last night. I’ll start looking through it when we get over to our hotel.” 

They found Eve where they left her in the lobby and Lena noticed right off the bat that her suitcase was not there with the other two. 

“Eve? Where is my suitcase?”

Eve looked up from her book, startled, “What?” 

“What happened to watching the luggage?” 

“Umm… I was. But it’s possible that I got distracted and walked off for a second. Because I thought I saw Chris Hemsworth. But it wasn’t him. Sadly. I’m so sorry Lena. I didn’t even notice it was gone.” 

Lena sighed, “It’s okay. I’ll file a report, see if by any chance it was grabbed by accident—”

“Lena!” 

She turned to see Donna Smoak, running towards her surprisingly well in her four inch heels. Felicity’s mom squeezed her in a breathtaking hug. “Oh honey it’s so good to see you.” 

The first time she had met Donna Smoak was spring break, sophomore year when she went home with Felicity to Las Vegas. Felicity had been embarrassed about the trailer park she had grown up in after her dad left, but Lena thought it felt more like a home than the cold, opulently sterile Luthor manor ever had for her. She could still vividly remember Felicity’s room, all the little details that made it  _ hers _ . Her room at home had been put together by the interior designer who had done the rest of the house and could have belonged to anyone. 

They had used their fake IDs to get into the casino at Treasure Island and their scheme was going along swimmingly until one of Donna’s friends recognized Felicity and promised not to tell anyone if they left without cashing out.

Donna was well-intentioned and emotive in all the ways that Lillian was manipulative and cold, but those differences hadn’t resulted in a better mother-daughter relationship. 

“Hi mom,” Felicity remarked from beside them. “Not sure if you remember me. Your daughter.” 

Donna released Lena and turned to Felicity, “Oh don’t use that tone on me. You’re the one who ignored my invitation to come visit for Hanukkah two years in a row.” 

Felicity rolled her eyes and let her mom pull her in for a hug. “I’ve been busy.” 

“I know, I know. Work, work, _ work _ .” 

“That’s also why we’re here.” Felicity dropped her voice to a whisper, “We’re investigating the murder that happened here last night.”

“What? A murder? I thought you worked at Queen Consolidated…” 

“I do. I’m taking a leave of absence to help Lena with some FBI stuff.”

“Honey that sounds insane. And they told us that guy died of a heart attack.” 

“Well, he didn’t. So if you could help us,” Felicity pulled out her phone and showed her mom the picture of Linda they had gleaned from the bird cam footage. “And ask some of your friends here— _ discreetly _ —if they saw someone who looks like this here yesterday, that would be great. I’m sending you the picture now.” 

“If I had known it would take someone dying for you to come home, I would’ve killed a man myself.” 

“Mom!” Felicity whispered sharply, looking around to make sure no one had overheard.

Donna huffed in exasperation, “Fine. I will help you. But only because it means you’ll have to see me again before you disappear for another couple of years if you want to find out what they say.” 

Felicity cracked a smile at her mom, “Deal.” 

Donna kissed the side of her head, “Good. Although I’m worried about you getting yourself into something dangerous.” 

“I can handle myself mom. I always have.”

“I know baby. Well, I have to get to work, but I’ll let you know when I’ve got some scoop on your mystery Nancy Drew.” Donna gave Lena another hug, “You be safe too honey.” 

When she walked away, Eve piped up from where she was protectively lording over the two suitcases that had not sprouted legs and walked off, “That was  _ your mother _ ?” 

Lena laughed, “Yeah, that was my reaction the first time I met her too.” 

* * *

Kara traced the monogrammed _LKL_ on the top of the suitcase with her fingertips before locating the zipper and tugging it open. Hands on her hips, she surveyed the contents neatly arranged inside. It was a carefully packed suitcase, done by someone who liked order even in the midst of chaos. Digging through the layers, she pulled out the meticulously folded garments and unfurled them for examination. Practical things. Jeans. Button down blouses, slightly wrinkled from being packed. A navy blazer. A soft pink pajama set with little black polka dots and black piping along the seams. Everything smelled like lavender scented laundry detergent. 

Shedding her clothes, she donned the pajamas. The pants were about two inches too short but the fabric was soft against her skin. 

She unzipped the toiletry case and found a tube of lipstick—a soft rosy color that she took with her into the bathroom. 

With a steady hand she painted her lips with the shade before smudging it around the edges of her mouth. She smiled at her freshly kissed appearance staring back at her in the mirror. A crafted illusion, no different from the makeup and wig she had worn the night before to lure a man to his death by her drink. 

No. Different from that. 

She pressed an imperfect lip print to the glass for the housekeeper to find the next morning and not give a second thought to before wiping it away with a cloth. 

* * *

Back at their hotel room, they crowded onto one of the beds to hover over Felicity and her laptop. There were hours of footage from the night of the murder that they could scrub through, but they started around the estimated time of death from the police report. 

“Wait, what was that?” Eve asked suddenly, jabbing a finger at the screen that was displaying the empty hallway they had been staring at since the last person—a harmless guest—walked through to enter their room. “Go back…” 

Felicity obliged and went back, slowing down the replay on a fraction of a second of the video that was distorted. 

“Good catch Eve. This has been tampered with.” Felicity hit a few keystrokes. “It looks like there’s about 5 minutes of encrypted footage. Give me 45 minutes,  _ tops _ , and I should be able to crack into it.” 

While Felicity was hard at work, Lena and Eve checked out the room service menu and enjoyed charging a four course meal to the ARGUS account. 

“You know, this was like… a normal Tuesday night dinner at my house growing up,” Lena commented when the food arrived and they started lifting the covers off of the dishes containing the best that the downstairs restaurant had to offer. 

Eve swallowed a bite of her steak, “A normal Tuesday night dinner for me growing up was boxed mac and cheese.” 

“Same,” Felicity remarked from where she was still hunched over her computer. “Sometimes my mom would bring stuff home from work though if it was the nice shift manager on duty…. And I’m in!” 

Lena dropped her fork onto the plate of crab cakes and hurried over to flop down on the mattress next to Felicity. She hit play on the video and what had once been a brief blip in a montage of empty hallway was now an illuminating scene. A woman, shedding her maid’s uniform to reveal a provocative—yet still tasteful, black dress underneath. A bottle of wine being retrieved from its hiding place within the cleaning cart. And finally, a glance in the direction of the camera. A sultry smile. A wink. Even with the bobbed, scarlet wig the face was unmistakable.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think this is her deliberately fucking with us,” Felicity commented as Lena reached forward to click rewind on the segment.

She had to agree. And she hated how effective it was. How it only intensified her desire to catch her while muddling her motivations for doing so. She was afraid of her. It was the only rational response to seeing firsthand the trail of bloody carnage this woman was capable of leaving in her wake. Yet she also wanted to know everything about her—but was it from opposite sides of prison bars or a dinner table? She couldn’t ignore that alongside the fear there was also a part of her that felt pulled by the dangerous allure of her flirtation. 

Lena raked a hand through her hair, slightly greasy from the day’s travel, “She’s arrogant, I’ll give her that.” 

“Arrogant would imply that it’s not justified. You said she’s been at large for months now and no one’s gotten anywhere close to her. Except now I think she knows someone’s getting close and she wants them to know that she knows and is completely unbothered by it. I mean, she went to enough trouble to make sure not just anyone could, but clearly she intended for someone to see this,” Felicity continued. “It would have been easier to just stay in the blindspots—which any even half decent criminal could have located—or completely erase all of the footage if she wanted to maintain the anonymity she’s been operating under up to this point.” 

“So you think she’s what?  _ Thrilled, _ by the prospect that someone’s getting closer to her?” Eve asked. 

Lena watched the smile and wink as it replayed on the laptop screen. “Sure seems like it.” 

The question was: had she yet come to the realization of exactly  _ who _ it was that was on her tail? The flirty smile, so resemblant of the one that had graced her face at Noonan’s seemed to imply that to be the case. But maybe Lena was once again reading the situation incorrectly. 

* * *

Kara took a sip of her complimentary mimosa as the young salesgirl at Saks, eager to please, paraded out a rack of clothing for her to peruse. At 9:14am it was quiet in the just-opened-for-the-morning department store—most of the city was just now stumbling towards bed after a night of revelry.

She had no intention of returning Lena’s suitcase to her empty, despite having pilfered all of the contents the woman had packed it with as souvenirs of sorts. Running her fingers down expensive feeling fabrics, she examined each piece one at a time. She imagined how each one would look on the woman she was shopping for. Imagined the occasion upon which she would wear them. For a moment her mind wandered to herself, slowly dragging down the zipper on a black and gold brocade dress, leaving kisses on the column on soft pale skin that was revealed before—

The flute of champagne and orange juice in her hand shattered, fragments of glass falling to the floor as a mixture of blood and bubbly dripped down her hand. 

“Are you alright miss?” The salesgirl lept into action, producing a towel out of nowhere and coming to her aid. 

Begrudgingly, she allowed the girl to fret over her for a few seconds before insisting that she was fine and pointing at a few garments that she wanted boxed up for purchase. The lust inciting dress remained on the rack but she paid with a fat stack of cash for a burgundy colored suit, Burberry trench, three new button up blouses, gray cashmere sweater, two pairs of Rag & Bone Jeans, and a pair of pajamas that she had spotted on a mannequin when she excused herself to the restroom to wash her hand. 

After impatiently watching the woman check every single hundred dollar bill for counterfeit, she departed the store with her gifts for Lena. Returning to her hotel she packed them into the suitcase with the same care that the previous contents had been. On top of the clothes she included a note that she signed simply with a press of her lips coated in the rosy lipstick.

She had just finished dropping off the suitcase at the concierge desk at the Fremont when her phone rang and she slipped it out of her pocket to see the number she knew belonged to her aunt. Dipping into a quiet alcove, she accepted the call. 

“No need to get pissy with me, I’m leaving today—”

“Yes, you are,” Astra interrupted her. “But you’re not going home. You have a new assignment.” 

* * *

“So what do we do now?” Felicity asked in a whisper as they moved around the room, taking turns in the bathroom to shower and getting dressed (Lena borrowing a pair of leggings and Felicity’s MIT sweatshirt to wear on the flight home). 

It was nearly noon but Eve continued to snore softly from the bed they had let her take for herself, a  _ “sweet dreams”  _ emblazoned eye mask pushed her mess of blonde curls back from her face. After they had finished dinner the night before, they had met Donna at the Grand to see if she had dug up anything from her coworkers. The only fruit of that excursion though had been the combined nearly $1000 Felicity had won at the Blackjack table and Eve at the slots before Lena dragged them away around 2am so they wouldn’t be totally sleep deprived come the next day. While they had gambled, she had been preoccupied with her thoughts, her mind replaying the security footage over and over again while she nursed a drink. 

“She’s been one step ahead of us this whole time, we have to be able to figure out where she’s going before her victim’s death is reported,” she answered. 

“Well hopefully wherever she’s headed next will be by plane. With my TSA bug operational, that’s our best bet unless she’s so heavily disguised that my photo recognition algorithm can’t pick her up.” 

The relative quiet of the room was shattered by Lena’s phone vibrating on the bedside table and she reached over to answer it. 

“Hey Sam, what’s up—”

“Gotham. I’m at Warner St and according to Felicity’s TSA scanner thing, she just boarded a flight for Gotham. Under an alias of course, but facial recognition matches up. It’s definitely her.”

_ Well, how was that for “speaking it into existence,” huh?  _

Lena bounced on her toes excitedly, “Can you meet us there? We could use your help...” 

However brilliant Felicity and Eve were, it didn't change the fact that they weren’t field trained. If this was going to come to a confrontation, she needed Sam to be there to watch her six. 

“I’m texting the neighbors as we speak to see if Ruby can stay with them for a few days.” 

“Perfect. See you soon.” 

Hanging up, she roused Eve from her slumber and they made hurried arrangements with ARGUS to get the jet ready for flight. On their way through the lobby they paused briefly at concierge to check out and it was there that Lena was reunited with her missing suitcase.

_ “Oh! Ma'am, wait! This was just returned for you. I was about to have someone take it up to your room.”  _

In their rush, Lena didn’t think to ask for a description of who had returned it. She wouldn’t even open it to discover what it now contained until hours later… 

**Author's Note:**

> i would love to know what you think! drop a comment or come chat with me over on twitter @mo_writes or tumblr @mogirl97 :D


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